Sen. Rick Santorum Quits Thomas More Law Center
: SignOnSanDiego.com reports on Dec. 22nd that "Sen. Rick
Santorum says he intends to withdraw his affiliation with the
Christian-rights law center that defended a school district's policy
mandating the teaching of 'intelligent design.' Santorum, the
Senate's No. 3 Republican who is facing a tough re-election challenge
next year, earlier praised the Dover Area School District for
'attempting to teach the controversy of evolution.' But the day after
a federal judge ruled the district's policy on intelligent design
unconstitutional, Santorum told The Philadelphia Inquirer he was
troubled by testimony indicating religion motivated some board
members to adopt the policy. ..."

"Evolution named 2005's top scientific
breakthrough" - Reuters reports on Dec. 22nd that "Two
days after a U.S. judge struck down the teaching of intelligent
design theory in a Pennsylvania public school, the journal Science on
Thursday proclaimed evolution the breakthrough of 2005. Wide-ranging
research published this year, including a study that showed a mere 4
percent difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, built on Charles
Darwin's landmark 1859 work "The Origin of Species" and the idea of
natural selection, the journal's editors wrote. 'Amid this outpouring
of results, 2005 stands out as a banner year for uncovering the
intricacies of how evolution actually proceeds,' they wrote.
'Ironically, also this year, some segments of American society fought
to dilute the teaching of even the basic facts of
evolution.'..."

AP reports on Dec. 21st that "Hundreds of human footprints
dating back to the last Ice Age have been found in the remote
Australian Outback, an official and media reported Thursday. ... The
prints were made in moist clay near the Willandra Lakes 19,000 to
23,000 years ago, the newspaper reported ahead of archeologists'
report on the find to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
State Environment Minister Bob Debus said the site showed a large
group of people walking and interacting. ..."

LiveScience.com reports on Dec. 19th that "Scientists have
mapped part of the genome of the woolly mammoth, a huge mammal that's
been extinct for about 10,000 years. The breakthrough could lead to
recreating the creatures. ..."

The Boston Globe reported on Dec. 20th that "A landmark 2004
paper in which South Korean scientists claimed to have cloned human
stem cells for the first time contains photos that appeared in an
unrelated paper, calling their claim into question and increasing the
controversy that surrounds the team. ..."

The Scotsman reports on Dec. 20th that "The Soviet dictator
Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style
warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently
uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the
mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was
ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest
for a super-warrior. ... Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from
what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet
Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in
human volunteers similarly fail. ..."

The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on Dec. 21st that "Late last
week, a Santa Fe District Court judge [Daniel Sanchez] signed
a temporary restraining order against talk-show host David Letterman
alleging he has tormented a city resident for more than 10 years by
using code words on his television program. ... [Colleen ]
Nestler wrote that she began sending Letterman 'thoughts of love'
after the Late Show With David Letterman began on CBS in 1993. 'Dave
responded to my thoughts of love, and, on his show, in code words
& obvious indications through jestures (sic) and eye expressions,
he asked me to come east,' she wrote. Then, three days before
Thanksgiving in 1993, Letterman asked Nestler to be his wife during a
televised 'teaser' for his show when he said, 'Marry me Oprah,'
Nestler wrote in the letter. 'Oprah had become my first of many code
names,' she wrote. ..."

Editor's note: This story is not newsworthy because it shows
there are wacky people in Santa Fe. We all knew that. It's newsworthy
because it shows how wacky Santa Fe judges can be.

Work on Synthetic Species
Underway...

The Globe and Mail reports on Dec. 19th that "Work on the
world's first human-made species is well under way at a research
complex in Rockville, Md., and scientists in Canada have been quietly
conducting experiments to help bring such a creature to life. ... The
project is being spearheaded by U.S. scientist Craig Venter, who
gained fame in his former job as head of Celera Genomics, which
completed a privately-owned map of the human genome in 2000. Dr.
Venter, 59, has since shifted his focus from determining the chemical
sequences that encode life to trying to design and build it: "We're
going from reading to writing the genetic code," he said in an
interview. ..."

RedOrbit reports on Dec. 20th that "NASA's Spitzer Space
Telescope has discovered some of life's most basic ingredients in the
dust swirling around a young star. The ingredients -- gaseous
precursors to DNA and protein -- were detected in the star's
terrestrial planet zone, a region where rocky planets such as Earth
are thought to be born. ..."

ABC News reporter John Stossel often criticizes the Agency
for International Development for acknowledging that DDT is safe, but
not spending a penny on DDT to combat malaria in Uganda. John Fleck
has dug up proof that Stossel's claim is erroneous.

The Albuquerque Tribune, via the AP, reported on Dec. 19th that
"A U.S. Army lieutenant who issued a now-famous news release that
sparked decades of speculation about whether aliens really
crash-landed here in 1947 has died. Walter Haut, a former spokesman
for the now-defunct Roswell Army Air Field, died of natural causes
Thursday in Roswell ... Haut listened closely on July 8, 1947, as
base commander Col. William Blanchard dictated information about a
recovered flying saucer and ordered Haut to issue it. ..."

Fumble Warning to AP: The claim that Col. Blanchard dictated the
press release is highly disputed. Get Pflock's book.

ID Courses Appearing in
Universities...

The American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
Officers (AACRAO) reports on Nov. 21st that "According to the Wall
Street Journal, classes questioning evolution have begun to establish
themselves at universities across the country. ... Courses on the
theory of intelligent design have emerged at state universities in
Minnesota, Georgia and New Mexico, and at private institutions such
as Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne. ... The establishment
of intelligent design on campuses has provoked a backlash. Last
month, University of Idaho President Tim White declared that teaching
of 'views that differ from evolution' in science courses is
'inappropriate.' Mainstream scientists cite what they claim as
overwhelming evidence for evolution, and condemn 'wrong science.'
Leslie McFadden, chair of earth and planetary
sciences at the University of New Mexico, says: 'My interest is in
making sure that intelligent design and creationism do not make the
kind of inroads at the university level that theyre making at
the K-12 level. You cant teach whatever you damn well please.
If youre a geologist, and you decide that the
earths core is made of green cheese, you cant teach
that.' ..."

For this, our last News Post of 2005, we go all the way back to
May for this under-reported shocker. Canada.com reported on May 4th
that "Satanists, apocalypse watchers and heavy metal guitarists
may have to adjust their demonic numerology after a recently
deciphered ancient biblical text revealed that 666 is not the fabled
Number of the Beast after all. A fragment from the oldest surviving
copy of the New Testament, dating to the Third century, gives the
more mundane 616 as the mark of the Antichrist. Ellen Aitken, a
professor of early Christian history at McGill University, said the
discovery appears to spell the end of 666 as the devil's prime
number. ..."

U.S. District Judge John Jones has ruled on the Kitzmiller case in
Dover, PA, and it's a smashing defeat for "Intelligent Design." Here
are some choice bits from the ruling:

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect.
However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an
explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust
an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the
science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific
propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the
members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that
several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted
their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to
cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID
Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading
advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive
their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should
continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our
conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an
alternative to evolution in a public school science
classroom.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as
the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this
is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as
the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school
board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a
constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to
adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The
breathtaking
inanity of the Board's decision is evident when
considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully
revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of
the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged
into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary
and personal resources.

As expected, the Discovery Institute has responded forcefully and
inanely. After the decision came down, DI announced "'The
Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the
spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of
Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than
open debate, and it won't work,' said Dr. John West, Associate
Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery
Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific
theory known as intelligent design. ...[West said] ...
Judge Jones got on his soapbox to offer his own views of science,
religion, and evolution. He makes it clear that he wants his place in
history as the judge who issued a definitive decision about
intelligent design. This is an activist judge who has delusions of
grandeur.""

Perhaps Discovery didn't notice that their claims of
"censorship" and "judicial activism" were already
addressed in passages from Jones' ruling above:

Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied,
debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is
unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a
public school science classroom. ...

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as
the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this
is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as
the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school
board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a
constitutional test case on ID. ...

There'll be many a scientist partaking of a distilled beverage
tonight, mateys!

Posted December 16th, 2005

Scientologists permit Tour
of secretive New Mexico Facility...

The Albuquerque Journal reported on Dec. 11th that "Several San
Miguel County officials recently got a look inside the Church of
Scientology's compound east of here [Las Vegas, NM], which
has been back in the news because of landscape markings visible only
from the sky. The compound was built in the 1980s in high desert
country near the community of Trementina, about 40 miles from Las
Vegas, and includes an underground archive for the writings of
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. A Scientology corporation called
the Church of Spiritual Technology runs the compound. ... The
interlocking circles etched in the desert match the logo of the
Church of Spiritual Technology. 'There's been speculation as to what
it really is,' Najar said of the compound, noting rumors that have
floated around about everything from the markings on the ground to
the contents of the buildings on the premises. But in their
invitation-only tour, Najar and the other county officials found no
major surprises just an apparently expensive archival center
designed to safeguard many of Scientology's key works. ..."

The Albuquerque Journal reported on Dec. 15th that "In the 1990
television movie 'Sparks: The Price of Passion,' actress Victoria
Principal played the mayor of Albuquerque, caught up in an imbroglio
over a high-profile economic development project. In 2009 or so,
Principal hopes to play the role of one of the country's first paying
astronauts, possibly from one of the largest economic development
projects in the state's history a planned $225 million
spaceport in southern New Mexico that officials hope will be the hub
of a new industry. By plunking down the full $200,000 cost earlier
this year, she became one of 100 'founders' of space tourism company
Virgin Galactic, which has announced plans to eventually take 10,000
passengers per year into space from its proposed headquarters south
of Truth or Consequences. ..."

Bob Park of "What's New" has weighed in on the proposal:
"SPACE DEVELOPMENT: WILL 'SIX FLAGS OVER THE MOON' BE NEXT? The
big news this week is that New Mexico is building the first
commercial spaceport. British entrepreneur Richard Branson says his
Virgin Galactic Airline will use the spaceport to launch tourists on
suborbital flights beginning in 2008. A $200,000 ticket will buy you
five minutes of weightlessness, with no extra charge for space
sickness. With America's once-proud space program hard-put to support
a crew of only two, wandering lost in the cavernous ISS, the future
in space seems to be theme parks. ..."

An interesting, if perhaps overly optimistic view, from Douglas
Kern at Tech Central Station (Nov. 9th): "If you're looking
for one of those famous, big-eyed alien abductors, try looking on the
sides of milk cartons. The UFO cultural moment in America is long
since over, having gone out with the Clintons and grunge rock in the
90s. Ironically, the force that killed the UFO fad is the same force
that catapulted it to super-stardom: the Internet. And therein hangs
a tale about how the Internet can conceal and reveal the truth.
...Yet in recent years, interest in the UFO phenomenon has withered.
Oh, the websites are still up, the odd UFO picture is still taken,
and the usual hardcore UFO advocates make the same tired arguments
about the same tired cases, but the thrill is gone. What happened?
Why did the saucers crash? ... The Internet showed this particular
emperor to be lacking in clothes. If UFOs and alien visitations were
genuine, tangible, objective realities, the Internet would be an
unstoppable force for detecting them. How long could the vast
government conspiracy last, when intrepid UFO investigators could
post their prized pictures on the Internet seconds after taking them?
How could the Men in Black shut down every website devoted to scans
of secret government UFO documents? How could marauding alien
kidnappers remain hidden in a nation with millions of webcams?
..."

Is One King Kong Movie worth 1000 Darwin Exhibits?
Dave Thomas blogs about Simon Houpt's comments (in the Toronto Globe
and Mail) on the new King Kong movie: "Kong
laughs, he cries, he pouts, he is shamed, he is proud, he has
childish temper tantrums, he takes his date skating in Central Park.
Hes us, and we are him, and the filmmakers have placed a
$207-million (U.S.) bet that audiences from Tacoma, Wash., to Dover,
Pa., will be taken in by Kongs humanity. Audiences may not
realize it, but the movie is a forceful argument for shared traits,
Darwins notion  the one that so disturbs creationists
 that weve evolved from other primates. Which means that,
as good as the efforts are of the American Museum of Natural History,
in the end that big monkey may do more to crush the creationists than
a thousand intelligently designed Darwin exhibits ever could.
"

The Guardian (UK) reports on Dec. 8th that "Tasha the
boxer is about to help reveal why dogs have been man's trusted
companions and hunting partners throughout recorded history.
Researchers have compiled the 12-year-old's DNA recipe, bringing
scientists a step closer to finding the genetic causes of diseases
common to all mammals and identifying the differences between dog
breeds. ... Today, an international consortium, including British
teams from Oxford and Cambridge, and led by scientists from the Broad
Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard,
unveils Tasha's DNA code in the journal Nature. ... By tracking
evolution's genetic footprints through the dog, human and mouse
genomes, the scientists found that humans share more ancestral DNA
with dogs than with mice, confirming that dog genes can be used to
understand human disease. They also found that selective breeding has
shuffled large blocks of DNA code among dog breeds, which should make
it easier to find the genes responsible for body size, behaviour and
disease. 'The genetic contributions to many common diseases appear to
be easier to uncover in dogs,' said Dr Lindblad-Toh, the report's
first author. 'If so, it is a significant step forward in
understanding the roots of genetic disease in both dogs and humans.'
..."

Reuters reported on Dec. 5th that "Environmental researchers
are preparing to capture what they call a new, mysterious species of
carnivore on Borneo, the first such discovery on the wildlife-rich
Indonesian island in over a century. Swiss-based environmental group
WWF said on Monday its researchers photographed the strange animal,
which looks like a cross between a cat and a fox, in the dense,
central mountainous rainforests of Borneo. 'This could be the first
time in more than a century that a new carnivore has been discovered
on the island,' said the WWF in a statement. ..."

John Fleck has the nitty gritty analysis on his Inkstain.net page.
Fleck writes on Dec. 5th "Theres this strange sort of
schoolyard bully pleasure in taunting Michael Fumento. I wonder,
though, if were the bullies, or if he is. I sorta feel like the
skinny guy, taking pleasure in the bullys comeuppance. But I
dunno. Maybe were being the bullies. Should I feel bad, picking
on poor Michael? The thing is, Fumento is, at times, a quite talented
journalist. But then, over and over again, he shows himself to be a
complete tool. ... He said something that was false, easily
demonstrated to be so, and his response was not to defend his
argument, nor to correct his mistake, but to attack his critics. ...
The falsehood remains on his own web site. ... The strange thing is,
as I said above, Fumento seems to be capable of really good work. I
happen to agree, for example, with the point he made in his Weekly
Standard piece about the hyping of the bird flu. But, with little
personal knowledge of the subject, I just have to wonder what sort of
Lancet-style howlers might be in there that hell be unwilling
to acknowledge and correct if he got them wrong. Thats why
its important for journalists to acknowledge and correct their
mistakes. Their credibility is at stake."

On the Panda's Thumb blog, I wrote on Dec. 7th that
"Its near the end of the fall term, and Report Cards are in!
The Fordham Foundation report on Americas science standards,
'The State of State Science Standards 2005,' has been released. ...
There are some key points emerging from this report. For one, this
years dumbing-down of Kansas standards got the Fordham folks
mad - really mad. 'Note added In Proof: The
early warnings have been justified. Kansas has adopted standards
whose treatment of evolutionary material has been radically
compromised. The effect transcends evolution, however. It now makes a
mockery of the very definition of science. The grade for Kansas is
accordingly reduced to F.' Additionally, the report directly
contradicts the claims of the Discovery Institutes incessant
revisionists. ..."

In the aforementioned Fordham Foundation report, the authors make
a comment that bears directly on the current Rio Rancho
situation. They note that "Criterion E1, the first of the two
concerned with seriousness about science education, denies credit
points to any standards that include, inter alia, 'creationist
anti-evolutionism disguised as critical thinking.' The inclusion of
such anti-evolution content is a goal of contemporary 'intelligent
design' creationism, now overtaking other, older forms of creationism
in the perennial struggle to discredit 'Darwinism.' A decade ago,
this movement, which acquired a command post and funding source in
the Discovery Institute of Seattle, Washington, argued vigorously for
explicit teaching of the evidence for intelligent designfor the
role of external, conscious agency in the history of life on Earth.
When examined by qualified scientists and mathematicians, however,
that evidence turned out not to be evidence, and so it
remainsno evidence at the time of writing. The promoters
of intelligent design creationism have perforce retreated to
arguments that invoke the popular and conveniently vague educationist
formula, 'critical thinking.' The claim now is that evidence against
'Darwinism' exists, that curriculum-makers should include it as an
exercise in critical thinking, and that 'freedom of speech' or
'fairness' requires that they do so. The hidden agenda is to
introduce doubtany possible doubtabout evolution at the
critical early stage of introduction to the relevant science.
..."

National Geographic reports on Dec. 1st that "A
150-million-year-old fossil of Archaeopteryx, long considered the
oldest bird, may put to rest any scientific doubt that
dinosaursspecifically the group of two-legged meat-eaters known
as theropodsgave rise to modern birds. Until recently, the
crow-size specimen was housed in a private collection. It is now
owned by the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis....
Archaeopteryx, the fossil shows, had a hyperextendible second toe.
Until now, the feature was thought to belong only to the species'
close relatives, the deinonychosaurs. ..."

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on Nov. 27th that "Ken Ham
should be on the same side of the street as proponents of intelligent
design. After all, he's in opposition to the atheistic view of
science as an explanation for the world we see. He, like many people
in the intelligent design movement, is a Christian. But intelligent
design advocates probably won't thank Australian-born Mr Ham for
articulating what many of them try to avoid saying. That is: for
some, the intelligent design movement is essentially a stalking horse
for religion and, in the US, a way of getting around the separation
of church and state to get into schools and influence children's
education. ..."

The York Dispatch reports on Dec. 2nd that "Attorneys for both
sides of the Dover Area School District lawsuit over intelligent
design say it may be too late to dismiss the case. Outgoing school
board member David Napierski has called on the new school board to
rescind the intelligent design policy in an effort to save the school
district from paying the plaintiffs' attorney fees should it lose the
federal case. ... Richard Thompson, chief counsel of the Thomas More
Law Center, which represented the school district, said yesterday,
'Napierskie has the right to ask, but that would only have a bearing
on prospective damages and future policies. It would not have any
bearings on past actions of the board. Just because you change the
policy does not change any alleged constitutional violation that may
have occurred when the policy was instituted on Oct. 18, 2004,'
Thompson added. Plaintiffs' attorney Witold Walczack of the American
Civil Liberties Union said he and his team disagree with Napierskie's
analysis. Citing Supreme Court case law, Walczack said a case does
not become moot unless there is 'no reasonable expectation that the
wrong will be repeated.' ..."

Also on Dec. 2nd, the Dispatch reported that "Dover Area School
Board candidates James Cashman and Bryan Rehm will face each other in
a special election next month, a judge ruled this morning. York
County Court of Common Pleas Judge John S. Kennedy denied Cashman's
request to include in the special election all eight candidates who
ran for four-year seats in the special election, instead limiting it
to only Cashman and Rehm. Rehm defeated Cashman by 96 votes,
according to unofficial election night tallies. Cashman appealed the
results earlier this week, citing a malfunction by one of the voting
machines at Friendship Community Church. He said he believes the
machine would have registered more votes for him had it worked
correctly. ... Only the 817 people that voted at Friendship Community
Church on Nov. 8 will be allowed to vote again. Results of the
special election will be added to the votes already tabulated from
the other Dover school board precincts to determine a winner.
..."

Shostak writes on Dec. 1st at Space.com that "...If SETI were
to announce that were not alone because it had detected a
signal, it would be on the basis of artificiality. An endless,
sinusoidal signal  a dead simple tone  is not complex;
its artificial. Such a tone just doesnt seem to be
generated by natural astrophysical processes. In addition, and unlike
other radio emissions produced by the cosmos, such a signal is devoid
of the appendages and inefficiencies nature always seems to add
 for example, DNAs junk and redundancy. ..."

In a Nov. 16th commentary, former Sandia scientist Al Zelicoff
says "You wouldn't know it from the hype, but the conditions that
caused the 1918 worldwide flu disaster simply do not exist today,
making it very unlikely that even modest numbers of humans will get
infected with H5N1, become symptomatic or die. Indeed, we already
know that some large number of Chinese chicken farmers have picked up
the virus, but the overwhelming majority didn't develop so much as a
sniffle because their immune systems rapidly eradicated the virus
from their bodies. ..."

A Correspondent writes in the November 11 Rediff.Com news that
"In a surprising move, the Vatican has come out in defence of
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, saying it is perfectly
compatible with the Bible's description of how God created the
universe. ... Now, criticising Christian fundamentalists who reject
Darwin in favour of a literal interpretation of the Bible's account,
the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Paul
Poupard, has said that both theories are 'perfectly compatible' if
the Bible is read correctly. The statement has been viewed as an
attack on creationist campaigners in America, who see both theories
as mutually exclusive. ..."

And Catholic News Service reports on Nov. 11th that "...the
Vatican's Pontifical Council for Culture was preparing to host a
conference on science and theology Nov. 9-11. Speaking to reporters,
French Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the council, said the
origin of the world is one area where scientists and religious
believers must recognize the limits of their own discipline. He said
people who support creationism as the only acceptable Christian
explanation of the world's origins are 'taking something never meant
to be a scientific explanation and calling it science.' ..."

"Intelligent Design: The New
Creationism Threatens All of Science and Society"By Marshall Berman,
Now Online at the American Physical Society
Site...

From the Oct. 2005 issue of APS News, New Mexican physicist
Marshall Berman's stinging critique of Intelligent Design
Creationism: "...The current Intelligent Design movement
poses a threat to all of science and perhaps to secular democracy
itself. The movement is highly political, very astute, extremely
well-marketed, disingenuous, and grossly misunderstood by most
Americans. ..."

ABC News reports on Nov. 7th "'Mmmm beer.' This
oft-repeated sentiment of Homer Simpson is a mantra for the millions
of beer drinkers in the United States. As popular as beer is,
however, it often has gotten a bad rap as a calorie-loaded beverage
that only serves to create paunchy beer bellies and alcohol-fueled
lapses in judgment. But that negative image may begin to fade:
Research is showing that beer could join the ranks of other
guilt-inducing but wildly popular foods -- chocolate, coffee and red
wine -- as a possible disease-fighter. ..."

As expected, the Kansas Board of Education has adopted new science
standards strongly critical of evolution. But the governor isn't
happy. Television station WIBW reported this week that "Gov.
Sebelius says Kansans should follow races for State Board of
Education seats closely. The governor told reporters she views the
board's approval of new science standards, which question evolution,
as a step in the wrong direction. And she said changing the board's
membership is the only way to change the standards again. But she
stopped short of saying she'd campaign against board members. Four of
the six who did, all Republicans, face re-election next year.
Sebelius told reporters that she's worried about how the board's
action will affect the state's efforts to recruit businesses.
..."

Tuesday's election saw eight incumbent Dover School Board members
defeated by pro-science challengers, all just a few days after the
end of the Dover ID trial on Nov. 4th. Pat Robertson then used
his "700 Club" to bash the people of Dover, PA, saying "I'd like
to say to the good citizens of Dover, if there is a disaster in your
area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city, and
don't wonder why he hasn't helped you when problems begin, if they
begin, and I'm not saying they will. But if they do, just remember
you just voted God out of your city. And if that's the case, then
don't ask for his help, because he might not be there." After the
media took notice of this astonishing remark, Robertson explained
"I was simply stating that our spiritual actions have consequences
and it's high time we started recognizing it. God is tolerant and
loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in his eye forever. If
they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles
Darwin ... maybe he can help them."

It's rumored that one could hear groans coming from Seattle's
Discovery Institute, even hundreds of yards away from the building.
So much for the old Dover board's insistence that this "isn't about
religion."

In the good old days, kooks thought they could protect themselves
from mental tampering by the government by wearing metallic hats as
shields against nasty transmissions. Alas, electrical engineers at
MIT have done the experiment, and found that the helmets
actually enhance certain frequency bands - those used by the
Federal Government! Is nothing sacred?

The Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" trial is over. The
Chicago Tribune reports on Nov. 4th that "The future of high
school biology in one central Pennsylvania school district, and
perhaps ultimately in the rest of the country, now rests in the hands
of a federal court judge, as a landmark trial on the teaching of
intelligent design came to a close here Friday. Judge John E. Jones
III said he will decide by year's end whether the Dover Area School
District and its board violated the constitutional ban on advancing
religious belief in public schools by requiring 9th grade biology
students to be informed of intelligent design, or ID. ...Jones
essentially will rule on whether ID is a scientific theory or a
religious belief. His decision is binding only on the parties
concerned but may have a persuasive effect elsewhere in the country,
according to lawyers. Attorneys for the defense have said they
eventually may take the case to the Supreme Court. ... 'In order for
intelligent design to be considered a science, the definition of
science must be broadened to include supernatural causes?'
plaintiffs' attorney Stephen Harvey asked final defense witness Scott
Minnich. 'Correct,' answered Minnich, a Discovery Institute fellow
and a microbiologist at the University of Idaho. ..."

Coming next week: elections! ABC News reported on Nov.
1st that "At the polls in Dover, voters will render their decision
Nov. 8 on whether to retain eight of the nine Dover Area School Board
members all Republicans or replace them with a Democratic slate whose
platform calls for removing intelligent design from the curriculum.
Republican voters outnumber Democrats in the district nearly 8-5. But
party affiliation may not matter in the election: While the
challengers are running on the Democratic ticket, half of them are
actually registered Republicans, according to a spokesman.
..."

CBS News reports on Oct. 31st that "Polygraphs use
electrocardiograms (ECGs) to measure changes in heart rate and
sweating to detect lies. But researchers say the stomach and
gastrointestinal tract are also extremely sensitive to stress, and
this mind-stomach connection may betray even the best liars. Their
results suggest that adding gastrointestinal monitoring to standard
polygraph techniques may increase the accuracy of lie-detection
methods, which are about 90% accurate. ..."

MSNBC reports on Nov. 1st that "Astronomers may have
detected the dawns early light  light from around the
dawn of the universe. Researchers from NASAs Goddard Space
Flight Center in Maryland believe they have captured traces of
radiation from long-extinguished stars that were 'born' during the
universes infancy. The research represents the first tangible
 but not conclusive  evidence of these earliest stars,
which are thought to have produced the raw materials from which
future stars, including our sun, were created. ..."

The Kansas City Star reported on Oct. 29th that "Researchers
traipsing through jungles collecting orangutan urine have better jobs
than a Kansas biology teacher, according to the latest edition of
Popular Science. In the magazine's third annual take on the 10 worst
jobs in science, those trying to teach evolution in Kansas classrooms
come in at No. 3 on the list, topped only by 'human lab rat' test
subjects dosed with pesticides and manure inspectors. ..."

Science News reported on Oct. 22nd that "A video has caught an
underwater animal, which looks like a flower, practically jogging
along the ocean bottom. The stalked crinoid spends most of its time
sitting and catching food with the flowerlike wheel of feathery arms
that have earned it and its relatives the nickname sea lilies.
Scientists had known for decades that stalked crinoids sometimes
movebut barely. They had been clocked at speeds no greater than
0.6 meter per hour. Now, however, a video from a submersible dive off
Grand Bahama Island reveals a speed demon, says Tomasz Baumiller of
the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A stalked crinoid pulled
itself along the bottom briskly enough for a viewer to notice.
Baumiller and Charles Messing of Nova Southeastern University's
Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, Fla., measured its pace at 140 m
per hour. ..."

NCSE reports that "On October 21, the American Enterprise
Institute sponsored a forum titled 'Science Wars' that focused on the
intelligent design/evolution controversy." Here's a great sound bite
from Brown biologist Ken Miller, on the ongoig "Intelligent
Design" trial in Dover, PA: "...what actually happened in
Dover, and all you have to do is read the papers, is after the board
of education instructed first its teachers to read the statement
about intelligent design, the teachers refused. And they deserve, I
think, awards for courage, and they gave as their reason, the PA
teacher code of ethics, which they all had to sign, to become
teachers in the state of PA, and one of the, the provision of which
is I will never knowingly present false information to a student. And
if the issues here is academic freedom, how about the academic
freedom of the teacher not to present false information. And in a
sense that's what the case is about. ..."

This week, former school board member William Buckingham was
caught lying about who paid for getting the book "Of Pandas and
People" into Dover school libraries (he did), and also about
making the statement a year ago that "Darwinism" should be balanced
with "creationism." Mike Argento of the York Daily Record notes on
Oct. 28th that "On the tape, which you can see at http://www.ydr.com/mmedia/multi/528,
Buckingham, wearing the same lapel pin he wore in court Thursday,
said he wanted to balance evolution in the classroom with something
else, 'such as creationism.' Oops. He said that the reporter
'ambushed' him and that he was 'like a deer in the headlights of a
car' and that the newspapers were all reporting that he and the board
were talking about creationism and that he thought to himself, 'Don't
say creationism.' Double oops. It was like he had a Homer Simpson
moment. He was thinking 'Don't say creationism. Don't say
creationism. Don't say creationism.' And then he opens his yap and
says 'creationism.' D'oh! ..."

The Panda's Thumb is updating stories on the trial daily. Last
week, Michael Behe was skewered on cross-examination. Panda's Thumb
reports "...there was a day full of cross examination, in which
one would learn that Behe wasnt as familiar with the scientific
literature on the immune system as one might hope for someone billed
as an 'expert,' that rigorous peer review in 'intelligent design' can
be obtained in a ten-minute telephone interview  without the
reviewer even having to see the manuscript, that the blood-clotting
system can be reduced to a 'core' of four parts  except that
when one does so the result is claimed to be lethal, and much more.
..."

The York Daily Record reported on Oct. 25th that "Testifying on
behalf of the Dover Area School District in U.S. Middle District
Court, philosophy of science expert Steve Fuller said intelligent
design "can't spontaneously generate a following" because the
scientific community shuts the door on radical views. ... during
cross-examination, he said intelligent design  the idea that
the complexity of life requires a designer  is 'too young' to
have developed rigorous testable formulas and sits on the fringe of
science. He suggested that perhaps scientists should have an
"affirmative action" plan to help emerging ideas compete against the
"dominant paradigms" of mainstream science. ..."

James Randi's commentary for October 21, 2005 has this article of
note: "James Van Praagh claims he communicates with the dead. Such
pretensions are always laughable, and often revolting. Now this tubby
travesty of a man has gone over the line, big time. He has chosen to
insult the memory of a friend who would kick his butt if he were here
to defend himself. On the 'Insider' TV program, plugging his latest
foray into deception via TV, Van Praagh claimed that hed
contacted the ghost of Johnny Carson. To no ones surprise,
hosts Pat O'Brien and Victoria Recano, were 'stunned' by his ability
to look up information on them via the Internet, and to provide them
with the usual array of picayune 'revelations.' ... Just look at the
inane crap conjured up by the faker as he invaded the private beach
walk where Johnny used to stroll near his Malibu beachside estate:

I think he felt very safe here. I think he would
choose the same time every day to come down this path. I think
this is where he got a sense of contemplation. He would think
about things here. He would think about his family. He was a
family man. I think he was a lot deeper than people gave him
credit for but I think that he didn't want to let people to know
about that part of him. I feel he wished that things were
different. I think he felt guilty when he died that certain things
in his family were not resolved at the time of his death.

In those 111 vapid words, Van Praagh manages to hedge even
these simple, obvious, trite, guesses by working in modifiers 
six 'I think' and one 'I feel'  the usual generalized
escape-hatches. The actual content itself is so non-significant that
it could be generated by a child. Somehow, it has escaped Van
Praaghs attention that Johnny Carson despised frauds,
particularly those who choose to feed on the vulnerability of the
grieving and needy. That wasnt part of the 'message' that he
shared with us from The Great Beyond. ..."

The Albuquerque Journal reported on Oct. 20th that "Rio Rancho
teachers should not be afraid to say 'no' to teaching intelligent
design in their science classes. That's the message in an American
Civil Liberties Union e-mail sent to 80 middle, mid-high and high
school science teachers this week. The organization also offered to
assist any teacher disciplined because of the matter. The letters
also were sent to the five members of the Rio Rancho Public Schools
Board of Education, ACLU executive director Peter Simonson said. ...
Some Rio Rancho students are being prompted to provoke discussion
leading to intelligent design, according to the ACLU letter. Simonson
said that during an event Friday at Destiny Center church in Rio
Rancho, students were encouraged to question evolution. Schlichte was
at the Friday meeting, leading the closing prayer, he said. The ACLU
letter encourages teachers to respond to those students 'with a brief
comment on why intelligent design is not science and therefore
not appropriate material for the science classroom and then
direct the class to legitimate science curriculum.' ..."

Samara Alpern of the Daily Lobo (UNM) writes on Oct. 18th
that "...Since the basic formula for Red Bull was developed in
Thailand, it's possible that taurine, glucuronolactone and B vitamins
are valued for different medicinal properties than they are in the
United States, but according to Western science, these ingredients
have questionable physiological value at best. A cup of sweetened
coffee or a Coke or two will do basically the same for you as a Red
Bull - at about a quarter of the price. ..."

Mike Argento of the York Daily Record (PA) writes on Oct.
19th that "Dr. Michael Behe, leading intellectual light of the
intelligent design movement, faced a dilemma. In order to call
intelligent design a 'scientific theory,' he had to change the
definition of the term. It seemed the definition offered by the
National Academy of Science, the largest and most prestigious
organization of scientists in the Western world, was inadequate to
contain the scope and splendor and just plain gee-willigerness of
intelligent design. ... Details aside, his definition was broader and
more inclusive of ideas that are 'outside the box.' ... Eric
Rothschild, attorney for the plaintiffs, asked Behe about whether
astrology was science. And Behe, after hemming and hawing and
launching into an abbreviated history of astrology and science, said,
under his definition, it is. ..."

Yahoo News reports on Oct. 18th that "Warming trends could
cause more water shortages in New Mexico, a climatologist predicts.
Experts point to carbon dioxide emissions at the primary cause of
global warming. Researchers are trying to prove that fossil fuel
emissions have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air,
trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing an increase in the
Earth's temperature. Computer simulations support the idea, but
that's not necessarily proof, said David Gutzler, a University of New
Mexico climatologist. 'We've never gone through global temperature
changes like this before,' he said. 'But if we're waiting for 100
percent ironclad proof, we'll just have to keep going and see what
happens.' ..."

The Clovis News Journal reports on Oct. 13th that "Carl
Armstrong is a Christian. He is also a Clovis High School science
teacher, and he doesnt think intelligent design has a place in
his, or any other, science classroom, at least for now. There is just
not enough evidence to support the theory, Armstrong said. ... A
letter sent to superintendents from the New Mexico Secretary of
Education, and forwarded to Clovis principals, may have squelched
intelligent design hype. New Mexico public schools, the
letter states, 'are not permitted to endorse a particular religion...
We believe this prohibition extends to creation science
or any of its variations...' The state mandate puts Clovis High
School teacher Peggy Ingram at ease. The biology, human anatomy and
physiology instructor does not believe intelligent design should be
taught in science class. ... Linda Bolyard, a Clovis Christian School
science teacher, is of a vastly different mindset. She teaches
creationism alongside evolution in her classrooms. Not doing so, she
said, is a disservice to students. In order to become independent
thinkers, students need to evaluate various theories, she said.
..."

Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are already crowing
about this study, reported by the BBC on Oct. 12th. It says
"The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in
China. The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had
probably been buried during a catastrophic flood. Radiocarbon dating
of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the
Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old.
..."

The Lawrence Journal-World reports on Oct. 7th that "Citizens
of the world should be concerned about religious extremism whether
its in Iran or America, says author Salman Rushdie, who was
once marked for death by Irans Ayatollah Khomeini. Rushdie
compared the emergence of religion into public life in Kansas with
similar movements across the world in a lecture Thursday at the Lied
Center. 'I would really love never to mention that word again:
religion,' Rushdie said. 'But now it seems to be coming right at us
all. I dont just mean radical Islam, by the way. I believe we
have some problems right here.' ... Rushdie also blasted intelligent
design proponents. 'I never had any doubts about evolution theory,'
he said. 'I gather there are parts of Kansas where the big bang did
not take place.' ..."

From the Panda's Thumb, Oct. 6th, 2005: Supreme Court nominee
Harriet Miers has "given 10 percent to 12 percent of her earnings
 'if not more'  to the evangelical Valley View Christian
Church in Dallas, where she has been a congregant for about 25
years," according to Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court.
It so happens that the Useful Links page for Mierss
Valley View Christian Church links prominently to the Creation
Evidence Museum, run by Dr. Carl Baugh, a creationist who is so far
out as to have been strongly criticized by Answers in Genesis and the
Creation Science Foundation. Baugh is perhaps most famous for his
fakey Paluxy Mantrack footprints, specifically the
Burdick Print, and his fossilized human finger.

A YEC on the Supreme Court? Connect the dots, people
connect the dots.

Carl Zimmer of The Loom writes on Oct. 4th that "In July
Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna wrote an eyebrow-raising
op-ed in the New York Times that favored Intelligent Design over
evolution. Now, as far as I can tell from this Reuters story, he's
claiming he was misunderstood. ... Now he's saying that evolution's
fine as long as biologists don't conclude that evolution proves
there's no creator. Darwin's theory is 'one of the very great works
of intellectual history.' Compare this with his claim in July that
'neo-Darwinism' was invented 'to avoid the overwhelming evidence for
purpose and design found in modern science.' ... As far as I can tell
from the report, Schoenborn seems to be doing his best impression of
Emily Litella: 'Never mind.' ..."

Forrest: "Of Pandas and
People" IS the ID/Creationism "Smoking
Gun"...

Now that the Dover, PA "Intelligent Design" Lawsuit has begun, it
could become to "Intelligent Design" what the Scopes Monkey Trial or
the Edwards v. Aguillard Supreme Court case were to creationism.
Testimony has begun in the trial, which is expected to last six
weeks. The Patriot-News [Harrisburg, PA] reported on October
6th that "Authors of a textbook critical of evolution replaced the
word 'creationism' with 'intelligent design' in 1987, soon after the
U.S. Supreme Court barred the teaching of creation science in public
schools, a professor and researcher of the history of intelligent
design testified in federal court yesterday. After the ruling,
authors deleted more than 250 references to 'creationism' and the
'creator' from draft versions of the book, 'Of Pandas and People,'
and replaced them with 'intelligent design' and 'intelligent
designer,' said Barbara Forrest, philosophy professor at Southeastern
Louisiana University and author of the book 'Creationism's Trojan
Horse -- The Wedge of Intelligent Design.' 'The substitution was made
throughout' the book, Forrest said. Gesturing to a chart on a
courtroom screen, she said a computer word search showed how
creationism and similar words were eliminated from the 'Pandas' text
after the Supreme Court ruling. 'You just saw the smoking gun,' Nick
Matzke, spokesman for the National Center of Science Education, said
in an interview after hearing Forrest's testimony. 'This proves
beyond the shadow of a doubt that intelligent design is creationism.'
..."

The Discovery Institute is apoplectic. They are trying to distance
themselves from the Dover school board, all while still trying to
defend "Intelligent Design." It does bring the Keystone Cops to
mind.

MSNBC reports on Oct. 7th that "In a sense, America's
space age began near here back in 1946, with the firing of a German
V-2 rocket to an altitude of 71 miles from White Sands Missile Range.
On Friday, rocketeers and schoolchildren came full circle, bringing
model rockets and big-rocket dreams back to the V-2's old haunting
grounds. 'This is where it all started, and this is where it's all
going to start again,' said Steve Bennett, chief executive officer of
Starchaser Commercial Space Access, a British-based company that
recently expanded to New Mexico. ... Friday's round of educational
activities, tied to this week's Countdown to the X Prize Cup
exposition, was conducted almost literally in the shadow of a
Canadian Arrow rocket mockup that was modeled after the V-2. The
Canadian Arrow team, backed by a recently formed venture called
PlanetSpace, brought the mockup to the museum to show it off.
..."

LiveScience reported on Oct. 3rd that "Scientists agree they
can't totally control the weather. But some experts think they can
tame it a bit. Schemes are wide-ranging, with proposals to throttle
everything from fog to global warming. Results have been mixed and
the controversy constant. Nature's most powerful storms, hurricanes,
are another matter. Hurricanes rely on warm water for fuel. Experts
disavow schemes from ocean plowing (to cool the water and remove the
energy source) to dragging icebergs into the path of a storm.
Smaller-scale weather systems might be more open to change. One idea
floated a few years back was to beam microwave energy from a
satellite to disrupt the convection that drives a tornado. Another
idea that remains alive after decades of research is cloud-seeding to
increase or decrease rain, fog or hail in certain locations.
..."

Prof. Steve Steve of the University of Ediacara has finally
written up his fascinating trip to New Mexico's De-Na-Zin Wilderness
area (a.k.a. the Bisti Badlands, a.k.a. "Dinosaur Land.") The
professor has posted a splendid pictorial journey, and demolishes
creationist flood geology to boot! Read "Steve Steve and the
Fossil-Fossils of De-Na-Zin" here:

At TechnologyReview.com, David Appell writes on September 26th
that "Magnetic medical devices are a $5 billion/year worldwide
industry--an estimated $500 million/year in the United States
alone--yet there's little to no evidence that they work to relieve
pain. Here's more evidence that they don't: 'Magnetic shoe insoles
did not effectively relieve foot pain among patients in a study,
researchers report in the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.'
... What's interesting, though, is that the magnetic insoles provided
relief to patients who believed they would: "...the results indicate
that patients who strongly believed in magnets had pain relief even
if they were given false magnets to wear." More evidence that the
placeo effect can provide real, positive, physical benefits if you
only believe a medical treatment works. ..."

ABC News reported on Sept. 30th that "For the first time,
biologists have documented gorillas in the wild using simple tools,
such as poking a stick in a swampy pool of water to check its depth.
Until now, scientists had seen gorillas use tools only in captivity.
Among the great apes, tool use in the wild was thought to be a
survival skill reserved for smaller chimpanzees and orangutans.
..."

The Times Online (UK) reports on Sept. 27th that
"Religious belief can cause damage to a society, contributing
towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide,
according to research published today. According to the study, belief
in and worship of God are not only unnecessary for a healthy society
but may actually contribute to social problems. The study counters
the view of believers that religion is necessary to provide the moral
and ethical foundations of a healthy society. ... The paper,
published in the Journal of Religion and Society, a US academic
journal, reports: 'Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation
is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands
as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world. In
general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate
with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality,
STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous
democracies.' ... The study concluded that the US was the
worlds only prosperous democracy where murder rates were still
high, and that the least devout nations were the least dysfunctional.
Mr Paul said that rates of gonorrhoea in adolescents in the US were
up to 300 times higher than in less devout democratic countries. The
US also suffered from 'uniquely high' adolescent and adult syphilis
infection rates, and adolescent abortion rates, the study suggested.
... 'The non-religious, proevolution democracies contradict the
dictum that a society cannot enjoy good conditions unless most
citizens ardently believe in a moral creator. The widely held fear
that a Godless citizenry must experience societal disaster is
therefore refuted.' ..."

The "Intelligent Design" trial has started in Dover,
Pennsylvania. Will this case be to ID what Scopes was to
Creationism? ABC News reports on Sept. 29th that
"The concept of 'intelligent design' is a form of creationism and
is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in
a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools.
Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan
State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover
Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't
offer evidence to support their idea. ..." Biologist Ken Miller
was a sizzling witness earlier in the week, according to reports.

My pick for the best sound bite of the week is this: "The
morning session included several light moments. Dr. Pennock testified
that referring to a 'designer' rather than 'God' is like referring to
'Ambassador Wilson's wife' rather than 'Valerie Plame Wilson.' As the
gallery laughed, Judge Jones chuckled and said, 'As an example.'
..."

The Rio Rancho School Board says it won't reconsider Science
Policy 401. Meanwhile, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has appeared in
the pages of the Rio Rancho Observer, and Professor Steve Steve, of
the University of Ediacara, stops in New Mexico to taste some
spirits, ride some horses, get a CESE pin, attend an
NMSR meeting, and attempt to speak at a Rio Rancho School Board
meeting.

Tom Hundley of the Chicago Tribune writes on Sept. 18th "So
what would Charles Darwin have to say about the dust-up between
today's evolutionists and intelligent designers? Probably nothing.
Shy and reclusive, Darwin disliked argument. He also was plagued by
poor health. In particular, he suffered from terrible flatulence that
made him reluctant to venture out in public. Even after he became one
of the most famous and controversial men of his time, he was always
content to let surrogates argue his case. ..."

And John Fleck writes in his Science Blog at the Albuquerque
Journal about Darwin's recognition as a geologist, and his skills in
meteorology: "A few years back, a reader got cheesed off at
me for calling Charles Darwin a geologist, suggesting that perhaps
readers would be better off if the people writing about science in
the newspaper knew more about science. In fact, I wrote in an email
in my defense, Darwin was a geologist. He studied as one before he
left on his voyage on the Beagle, and his first important writings
after the trip were about the geology of what he'd seen. ... Comes
now Randall Cerveny, from Arizona State, with a delightful look at
Charles Darwin's studies of meteorology and climate on the voyage of
the Beagle. It's in the latest Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society (large
PDF download). Cerveny shows Darwin, for example, noting
on Argentine climate variability, noting things that we now know as
El Niño long before it was all the rage among today's climate
wonks with their buoy networks and computer models. 'These droughts
to a certain degree seem to be periodical,' he wrote. That Charles,
he was thinking. ..."

Scienceagogo,com reports on Sept. 23rd "How complex and
physiologically remarkable structures such as the human eye could
evolve has long been a question that has puzzled biologists. But in
research reported this week in Current Biology, the evolutionary
history of a critical eye protein has revealed a previously
unrecognized link between certain components of sophisticated
vertebrate eyes - like those found in humans - and those of the
primitive light-sensing systems of invertebrates. The findings, from
researchers at the University of Oxford, the University of London and
Radboud University in The Netherlands, put in place a conceptual
framework for understanding how the vertebrate eye, as we know it,
has emerged over evolutionary time. ... The new findings deal a
serious blow to the Intelligent Design movement which has long
contended that the lack of an apparent evolutionary pathway for
complex eye development indicated the presence of a supreme designer.
..."

The first part of an extensive look at "ID" by Ker Than of
LiveScience.com is online as of Sept. 22nd. Part 1 is "An overview of
the increasingly heated exchange between scientists and the
proponents of intelligent design." Part 2 is "'The Death of Science':
Proponents argue that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific
theory, but a close look at their arguments shows that it doesn't
pass scientific muster." Look for capsules on the major players -
Darwin, Minnich, Krauss, Johnson, Forrest, and Miller.

George Johnson reviews the Dalai Lama's new book, "The Universe in
a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality." While he
was initially fearful "that His Holiness, the leader of Tibetan
Buddhism, was adding to the confusion between reason and
faith," Johnson was put at ease by these words from the Dalai
Lama: "If scientific analysis were conclusively to
demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must
accept the findings of science and abandon those claims... [No
one who wants to understand the world] can ignore the basic
insights of theories as key as evolution, relativity and quantum
mechanics. ..."

In an Albuquerque Tribune Editorial titled "Religion, Science
Don't Mix" (Sept. 15, 2005), Dr. Marshall Berman writes "...
Schlichte insults those who disagree with him, calling them
'fearmongers,' opponents of 'critical thinking,' intolerant, and
opposed to free speech and freedom of religion. But opponents of the
policy are none of these. They strongly favor scientific debate, but
not fifth-column attempts to introduce unscientific concepts into
science classrooms. Does Schlichte's concept of academic freedom and
open debate also include teaching astrology, holocaust denial,
racism, slavery, Jihad or similar concepts in order to present both
sides of issues? ..."

And on Sept. 13th, 2005, the Editorial Staff of The Albuquerque
Tribune, in a piece called "Scientists, public must protest board's
policy," declared "Shame on the Rio Rancho Board of Education,
specifically board members Don Schlichte, Kathy Jackson and Marty
Scharfglass. ... The Rio Rancho Board of Education should be about
the business of educating, not preaching to, its students. It is
obligated to revisit the issue immediately and right this wrong.
..."

The Independent (UK) reports on Sept. 12th that "They are
man's closest cousins and they are staring into the abyss. But in one
of the most important environmental treaties, hope has been offered
to stop the headlong slide towards extinction of humankind's nearest
relatives, the great apes. The agreement signed in Kinshasa, in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, is on a par with the 1982 whaling
moratorium and the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change. It offers a
real chance to halt the remorseless jungle slaughter of gorillas,
chimpanzees, bonobos [pygmy chimpanzees] and orang-utans,
which on current trends is likely to kill them all off within a
generation. ..."

The New York Times reported on Sept. 6th that "Only in science
fiction do people's minds get possessed by alien beings. For
grasshoppers, zombification is an everyday hazard, and it obliges
them to end their lives in a bizarre manner. Biologists have
discovered and hope to decipher a deadly cross talk between the
genomes of a grasshopper and a parasitic worm that infects it. The
interaction occurs as the worm induces the grasshopper to seek out a
large body of water and then leap into it. ..."

The York Daily Record reported on Sept. 14th that "The
attorney for the Dover Area School Board calls his client's decision
to include intelligent design into the biology curriculum a 'modest
proposal.' 'That this very modest proposal is in fact a violation of
the (First Amendment's) establishment clause is ridiculous,' said
Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center. But apparently a
federal judge thinks that it's at least a possibility. In a ruling
Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III denied Dover's request
for summary judgment to throw out a case filed against the district
by 11 parents over the intelligent design inclusion. He wrote that
'genuine issues of material fact exist regarding as to whether the
challenged policy has a secular purpose and whether the policy's
principal or primary effect advances or inhibits religion.' The trial
is scheduled to begin Sept. 26 in Harrisburg federal court.
..."

"... the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on
the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a
million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained,
however - the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those
die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party. The
storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a
deadly storm surge into Lake Ponchartrain. The water crept to the top
of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over.
Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level - more than
eight feet below in places - so the water poured in. ... Thousands
drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and
industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later
perished from dehydration and disease as theu waited to be rescued.
It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was
buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were
homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in
the United States. When did this calamity happen? It hasn't - yet.
But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched."

On the website for Jonathan Wellss book Icons of
Evolution, theres a page titled Ten questions to ask
your biology teacher about evolution. All are about supposed
flaws in the Icons of Evolution - the Miller-Urey
experiments, Darwins Finches, Horse Evolution and more.

Here is Question #1:

ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953
Miller-Urey experiment shows how lifes building blocks may
have formed on the early Earth  when conditions on the early
Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and
the origin of life remains a mystery?

This week, NASAs Astrobiology Institute and Washington
University in St. Louis made an announcement that should, once again,
sound the death-knell for this particular Icon of
Anti-Evolution.

Today (Sept. 8th), the Faculty Senate of the New Mexico Institute
of Mining and Technology issued a statement strongly condemning Rio
Ranchos new science policy, which has been
discussed previously (see the Rio Rancho Update page: http://www.nmsr.org/riorncho.htm).
Also, an excellent letter opposing the policy appeared in the Rio
Rancho Observer.

Kenneth Chang reports in the Aug. 30th New York Times that
"Because hurricanes form over warm ocean water, it is easy to
assume that the recent rise in their number and ferocity is because
of global warming. But that is not the case, scientists say. Instead,
the severity of hurricane seasons changes with cycles of temperatures
of several decades in the Atlantic Ocean. The recent onslaught 'is
very much natural,' said William M. Gray, a professor of atmospheric
science at Colorado State University who issues forecasts for the
hurricane season. ..."

The AP reported on Aug. 30th that "Brazil's military
continued work on an atomic bomb after it was ordered to scrap the
program in 1985 and by 1990 had nearly finished building one, a
leading nuclear scientist said. Jose Luiz Santana, the former
president of Brazil's nuclear energy commission, known by its
Portuguese acronym CNEN, said the military was preparing a test
explosion when the program was ultimately dismantled in August 1990.
..."

In an excellent column titled "Teaching Science: The
president is wrong on Intelligent Design," John Derbyshire
writes in the August 30 National Review Online that "I think
intelligent teenagers should also be given some acquaintance with
pseudoscience, just so that they might learn to spot it when they see
it. A copy of that excellent magazine Skeptical
Inquirer ought to be available in any good high school
library, along with books like Gardner's. I am not sure that either
pseudoscience or its refutation has any place in the science
classroom, though. These things properly belong in social studies, if
anywhere outside the library. And what should we teach our kids in
biology classes, concerning the development of living things on
earth? We should teach them Darwinism, on exactly the same arguments.
There is no doubt this is consensus science. ..."

The BBC reports on Aug. 31 that "The study shows that our
genomes are startlingly similar. We differ by only 1.2% in terms of
the genes that code for the proteins which build and maintain our
bodies. This rises to about 4%, when non-coding or "junk" DNA is
taken into account. ..."

Oh, and the first ever Chimp Fossils have been found! The
California Academy of Sciences announced on Aug. 31st that "Lucy
may be the most famous of the fossil hominins, but she does not stand
alone in that category  over the past few decades, researchers
have found thousands of fossils from our early human ancestors.
Surprisingly, however, scientists had not identified a single fossil
from a chimpanzee until Nina Jablonski, Curator and Irvine Chair of
Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences, identified three
chimp teeth from a fossil site in Kenya s Rift Valley in late
2004. Her intriguing discovery will be announced in the cover story
of the September 1 issue of Nature. ..."

New Mexico Science Standards
Do NOT Support IDs Concept of Teach the
Controversy...

On the Panda's Thumb blog on August 23, Marshall Berman and Dave
Thomas write "On Sunday, August 21, 2005, the New York Times
published an article entitled 'Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on
the Defensive.' This otherwise excellent article unfortunately
contained several errors that resulted from treating some false
information from the Discovery Institute (DI) as accurate. One major
error was accepting the DI view that New Mexico has 'embraced the
institutes teach the controversy approach.' This is
absolutely false, as the following evidence will show. ..."

Writing on the Panda's Thumb on August 26, Dave Thomas notes
"Well, its Official. Its not just the New York Times
believing the Discovery Institutes line that New Mexicos
new school science standards 'embraced the institutes
teach the controversy approach.' Now its the Rio
Rancho Public Schools. On Monday, August 22nd, the Rio Rancho (NM)
School Board adopted 'Science Policy 401,' over the protests of most
of the attendees at the meeting. The policy begins by saying "The Rio
Rancho Board of Education recognizes that scientific theories, such
as theories regarding biological and cosmological origins, may be
used to support or to challenge individual religious and
philosophical beliefs. Consequently, the teaching of science in
public school science classrooms may be of great interest and concern
to students and their parents. ..." It gets worse from there. Much
worse. ..."

The New Mexico Academy of Science has come out swinging against
the new policy, stating "The Academy opposes policy 401 because it
proposes a completely inaccurate definition of science itself. Saying
that 'reasonable people may disagree about the meaning and
interpretation of data' obscures the fact that, in science, all ideas
and observations are not created equal. Alternative ideas are tested
in science every day  but if they fail, they are discarded for
better explanations and conclusions . If scientists simply
agreed to disagree about 'the meaning and interpretation of data,'
scientific progress would cease. Science is about testing ideas and
claims, not pretending that all 'interpretations' are equally valid.
..."

In good news this week, the Seattle Times reported on August 24th
that "Bob Davidson is a scientist  a doctor, and for 28
years a nephrology professor at the University of Washington medical
school. He's also a devout Christian who believes we're here because
of God. It was these twin devotions to science and religion that
first attracted him to Seattle's Discovery Institute. That's the
think tank that this summer has pushed 'intelligent design'  a
replacement theory for evolution  all the way to the lips of
President Bush and into the national conversation. Davidson says he
was seeking a place where people "believe in a Creator and also
believe in science. 'I thought it was refreshing,' he says. Not
anymore. He's concluded the institute is an affront to both science
and religion. ..."

Senate Majority leader Bill Frist has come out swinging for
"Intelligent Design." MSNBC reports on August 19th
that "Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist said "intelligent design" should be taught
in public schools alongside evolution. Frist, a Republican from
Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters
afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas,
including intelligent design. 'I think today a pluralistic society
should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including
faith,' Frist said. ..."

In an article titled "The strange redemption of Connie
Morris, high school slut turned Kansas State Board of Education
anti-evolutionist," Justin Kendall of the Pitch
(KS) reports on August 18th that "A member of the Kansas
State Board of Education, the conservative Republican from St.
Francis -- a town with 1,497 residents in the far northwestern corner
of the state, just 20 miles east of the Colorado line -- had publicly
written off the theory of evolution in her newsletter as an 'age-old
fairytale.' ... Her 208-page tell-all autobiography, From the
Darkness: One Woman's Rise to Nobility (available on Amazon.com
for as little as $3.09), reveals that she wasn't always so
conservative. Before she was Connie Morris, enemy of evolution, she
was Connie Littleton, black-haired siren. ... She frolicked in free
love, drowned in drugs and endured domestic violence and sexual abuse
before giving herself to Christ. But even Jesus couldn't tame her.
... From the Darkness provides a striking insight into the
life of an elected official who has publicly claimed that she is not
trying to insert religion into public-school classrooms even as she
has vowed that her political career is intended solely 'to lead many
to Christ, so the population of Heaven will be greater because of
me.' Such grandiosity pervades Morris' book; even when writing about
her life at the depth of depravity, she never tires of reminding
readers that she's pretty. ..."

Writing in the August 18th Palm Beach Post, editorial writer Jac
Wilder VerSteeg sees right through the Intelligent Design
fog to the heart of the matter. I've discussed the piece over at the
Panda's Thumb, in a piece called "Santorum shines spotlight on
IDs 'Wink Wink Nudge Nudge.' "

"This is London" (from the Evening Standard) reports on
Aug. 16th that "When he walks on to a movie set, he usually gets
star treatment. But as Tom Hanks arrived at Lincoln Cathedral
yesterday, he found himself somewhat upstaged. A handful of
protesters were making their feelings known about the decision to
film scenes from The Da Vinci Code in the historic building. Led by a
Catholic nun, Sister Mary Michael, they claimed the movie, based on
the bestselling novel by Dan Brown, should be filmed elsewhere. She
led a 12-hour prayer vigil to push the message home. ..."

Breitbart.com reported on August 19th that "With Asian tourists
still shunning its southern beaches, Thailand is calling in a revered
Chinese sea goddess to ward off the restive spirits of the thousands
who died in last December's tsunami. A statue of Godmother Ruby,
known as Mazu in Chinese, will be brought to the Thai island of
Phuket from the Chinese coastal province of Fujian next month for
ghost-clearing rites, said Suwalai Pinpradab of the Tourism Authority
of Thailand. ..."

MSNBC reported on August 11th that "Fruit flies carry a
gene  aptly named the 'hangover' gene  that appears to
help them become tolerant to alcohol. Tolerance is thought to promote
dependence, so if a similar gene is found in humans, it might lead to
drugs to treat or prevent alcoholism. In the journal Nature,
researchers report that only fruit flies that carry a functioning
'hangover' gene develop a tolerance for alcohol. 'If humans have a
gene that has a function similar to that of 'hangover,' we could
interfere with the function of such a gene,' thereby preventing
people from developing addiction to alcohol, study author Dr. Ulrike
Heberlein of the University of California at San Francisco told
Reuters Health. ..."

So, the new discovery offers promise, but only to alcoholic
fruit flies.

Since President Bush made a remark on presenting Intelligent
Design along with evolution in schools, the press has been going
bonkers over the issue. Significant coverage this week included these
items, among many:

TIME Magazine, August 15th issue Cover Story: The Evolution
Wars. "When Bush joined the fray last week, the question grew
hotter: Is 'intelligent design' a real science? And should it be
taught in schools?" Here's a snippet: "The new,
presumably Constitution-proof way of providing coverage for
communities that wish to teach ideas like intelligent design is to
employ such earnest language as 'critical inquiry' (in New Mexico),
'strengths and weaknesses' of theories (Texas), and 'critical
analysis' (Ohio). It's difficult to argue against such benign
language, but hard-core defenders of Darwin are wary. 'The
intelligent-design people are trying to mislead people into thinking
that the reference to science as an ongoing critical inquiry permits
them to teach I.D. crap in the schools,' says David Thomas, president
of New Mexicans for Science and Reason. ..."

ABC's NIGHTLINE, Wednesday Aug. 10th: "Despite Criticism,
'Intelligent Design' Finds Powerful Backers; Seattle Group Works to
Create National Debate Where Scientists Say None Exists." From the
report: "The idea of intelligent design itself evolved
largely through a skillful marketing campaign that has promoted the
concept of a controversy many scientists insist does not exist. In
"Nightline's" own survey of the country's top 10 biology departments,
the verdict was unanimous -- of the nine department chairmen who
responded, all insisted no scientific evidence supports the concept
of intelligent design. ..."

The Discovery Institute response: "Nightline's main point
appears to be that there really isn't any scientific controversy over
Darwinism and intelligent design. How do they know this? They checked
with several Darwinists, who told them so! That's right. According to
Nightline, because Darwinists happen to believe there is no
scientific controversy over evolution, there really must be no
controversy. ..."

I liked this passage from George Will's Nightline appearance
so much that I transcribed and typed it up myself, in lieu of an
internet transcript:

"Once you concede, however, which science compels us to
concede, that the earth does have a long, complicated, evolving
history, then the argument is about the mechanism, and the question
then is: 'What does Intelligent Design bring to explaining the
mechanism?' The answer is 'Nothing but faith' - nothing but the
postulate that, as the current pope said when he was a cardinal,
'Unguided evolution is impossible.' Impossible, fine, then again,
it's a theological position, but not a testable one. ..."

The Albuquerque Tribune had this to say in August
9th commentary: "President Bush raised eyebrows and dropped
jaws across the nation last week by endorsing the notion that
"intelligent design" - code words for creationism - should be taught
in public schools as an alternative view to evolution. In doing so,
he once again showed his disregard for science and put the
unwarranted credibility of the Oval Office and the presidency behind
the movement to contaminate factual science curriculums with
religious beliefs. He fueled anti-evolution efforts in several states
and school districts, including one that was defeated but still
simmers in New Mexico. ..."

Columnist Mark Russell, in an August 7th column, explained why
Intelligent Design just isn't going to work: "No way are
people going to sing 'Intelligent Designer Bless America.'
..."

Finally, the August 7th edition of PUB BUS notes " In
a statement faxed to the editor of US Weekly magazine, God chided
President George W. Bush for using the theory of intelligent design
'to suck up to people who claim they speak for me or, worse yet,
people who claim that I have spoken directly to them. ..."

The New York Times reported oin Aug. 12th that "Philip J.
Klass, an electrical engineer and aviation editor who earned the
nickname Sherlock Holmes of U.F.O.'s for his assiduous, acidic
debunking of flying saucers and those who claim to see them, died
Tuesday at his home in Merritt Island, Fla. ..."

Here is more from an August 12th CSICOP press
release: "CSICOP Laments Passing of Two World-class
Paranormal Experts, Philip Klass and Robert Baker. AMHERST, N.Y.
(August 12, 2005) -- The Committee for the Scientific Investigation
of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) mourns the passing of Philip J.
Klass and Robert A. Baker, two long-time authors and investigators
who passed away this week -- one a skeptical ufologist, the other a
noted ghostbuster. Philip Klass (1919-2005) was
a founding member of CSICOP and one of the world's foremost experts
on UFOs. ... Robert Baker (1921-2005) was a
CSICOP fellow and one of the world's preeminent authorities on such
phenomena as ghosts, alien abductions, religious apparitions, and
reincarnation. ..."

Posted August 5th, 2005

President Wades into
'Intelligent Design' Fray...

Ever since President George W. Bush's statement that he supports
teaching Intelligent Design creationism in our public schools, the
blogosphere has been raging! Here are some of the more useful
compendiums:

Charles Krauthammer has written a piece titled "Let's Have No More
Monkey Trials: To teach faith as science is to undermine
both." for Time Magazine. He writes "How many times do we
have to rerun the Scopes "monkey trial"? There are gaps in science
everywhere. Are we to fill them all with divinity? There were gaps in
Newton's universe. They were ultimately filled by Einstein's
revisions. There are gaps in Einstein's universe, great chasms
between it and quantum theory. Perhaps they are filled by God.
Perhaps not. But it is certainly not science to merely declare it so.
..."

The Columbia Missourian reports on August 2nd that "The
Discovery Institute, which, according to its Web site, operates with
the 'belief in God-given reason and the permanency of human nature,'
consistently scoffs at accusations of a religious agenda. But the
institutes senior fellow, mathematician and philosopher William
Dembski, gives credit to creation science guru Henry Morris for
stirring evolution opposition and says intelligent design is much
closer to creationism than to evolution. 'In its relation
to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a
ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish
that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious
consideration,' Dembski wrote in a reply to Morris.
..."

Father George Coyne is Director of the Vatican Observatory.
Writing in the Aug. 6th Tablet, Britain's Catholic Weekly, Father
Coyne, a distinguished astronomer, takes Cardinal Schönborn on
head-on. He writes "For those who believe modern science does say
something to us about God, it provides a challenge, an enriching
challenge, to traditional beliefs about God. God in his infinite
freedom continuously creates a world that reflects that freedom at
all levels of the evolutionary process to greater and greater
complexity. God lets the world be what it will be in its continuous
evolution. He is not continually intervening, but rather allows,
participates, loves. Is such thinking adequate to preserve the
special character attributed by religious thought to the emergence
not only of life but also of spirit, while avoiding a crude
creationism? Only a protracted dialogue will tell. But we
should not close off the dialogue and darken the already murky waters
by fearing that God will be abandoned if we embrace the best of
modern science. ..."

Space.com reports on August 3rd that "A host of hidden black
holes have been revealed in a narrow region of the sky, confirming
astronomers' suspicions that the universe is loaded with many
undetected gravity wells. ... New observations with NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope cut through dust to spot quasars blocked by their own
clouds, as well as other quasars hidden inside galactic dust.
..."

Wired News reported on July 5th that "Fueling nuclear reactors
with the element thorium instead of uranium could produce half as
much radioactive waste and reduce the availability of weapons-grade
plutonium by as much as 80 percent. But the nuclear power industry
needs more incentives to make the switch, experts say. Scientists
have long considered using thorium as a reactor fuel -- and for good
reason: The naturally occurring element is more abundant, more
efficient and safer to use than uranium. Plus, thorium reactors leave
behind very little plutonium1, meaning that governments have access
to less material for making nuclear weapons. ..."

In honor of this weekend's showing of "Monkey in the
Middle," the creationist-sponsored play about the Scopes Trial,
we've updated our 'Monkey' page with a report on NMSR's bonafide
connection to Scopes - member Florence Wengerd, whose father, Kirtley
Mather, was one of the scientists prepared to testify at the 1925
trial. Florence talked to NMSR about her father in 1999, and a
discussion is now on the web for your perusal.
Source: http://www.nmsr.org/monkey.htm#june99

More on Catholic
Hand-wringing over Evolution...

Tom Roberts, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, writes on
July 29, 2005 that "Those under the impression that evolution was
a more or less settled (if yet complex) issue for Catholics may have
been jolted by the July 7 op-ed piece in The New York Times by
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Austria arguing that evolution
may be inconsistent with Catholic faith. ... There is no simple
sorting out of this issue, yet a body of teaching has existed (and
been developed) for some time so that it seems unnecessary for
Catholics to get dragged into this front in the culture wars. It also
is unfortunate that a cardinal with strong connections to the pope
would appear to be used on one side of that battle by a think tank
and its public relations arm in the United States. ..."

In the same journal, John L. Allen Jr. reports from Rome in an
extensive piece, titled "Catholic experts urge caution in evolution
debate," and sub-titled "Scientists, theologians take issue with
Schönborn's op-ed article." He writes "To the extent
Schönborns point is that Christianity cannot accept a
universe without an active, personal God, they say, theres
little to dispute. If taken as a scientific statement, on the other
hand, these observers warn that Schönborns insistence on
seeing 'purpose and design' in nature could steer the Catholic church
towards creationism in the bitter cultural debate, especially
prominent in the United States, between evolution and intelligent
design. ..."

NMSR scientists worked on this one for weeks with TV-13's
Larry Barker, and now - at last - the Story has been Told! It's a
Physics and Consumer Issues Extravaganza! The piece, which aired
Wednesday, July 28th at 10 PM, was titled "Scientists dispel claims
of 'wetter' water device." Here's the pitch: "It claims to give
you "wetter" water, and even improve the gas mileage on your car.
Larry Barker had scientists put it to the test." Hidden camera/
undercover video's, mock swamp coolers, microscopic examination of
scale buildup, chemical tests of softness - it's all here!

MSNBC reports on July 29th that "Perhaps he is still
stomping around somewhere, but a DNA test has confirmed that it was
not Bigfoot roaming the Yukon earlier this month  it was just a
bison. A hair sample was reportedly plucked from a bush near Teslin
in the Yukon at a spot where several people claimed they saw and
heard a large, hairy creature making a late-night run through their
community. They also reported seeing an unusually large footprint.
The witnesses speculated that they had seen Bigfoot, also known as
Sasquatch, an ape-like creature said to haunt the wilderness of
western Canada, among other places. But Bigfoot's presence was
refuted after a geneticist from the University of Alberta did tests
on the sample, and said the DNA match for a bison was 100 per cent.
..."

Sci-Tech Today reports on July 28th that "The National
Institutes of Health has bad news for the millions of Americans who
spend $155 million a year on the popular herbal remedy echinacea to
treat the cough, runny nose and malaise that is the common cold: It
doesn't work. 'It's not clinically effective,' says Ronald Turner, an
expert on the common cold at the University of Virginia School of
Medicine and lead author on a major echinacea study. The study,
reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, is the 'most
sophisticated' test ever done on the effectiveness of the herbal
remedy, says Stephen Straus, director of NIH's National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine, which financed the work.
..."

Words won't do this one justice. You simply have to surf over to
the web page for an interactive demonstration of the not-so-awesome
psychic powers of Albuquerque's "Psychic Ana." If only
she'd had a premonition! If only she had access to some marvelous
power that would help her predict the Future! If only she'd
KNOWN!!!

LiveScience reports on July 18th that "The collapse of a giant
ice shelf in Antarctica has revealed a thriving ecosystem half a mile
below the sea. Despite near freezing and sunless conditions, a
community of clams and a thin layer of bacterial mats are flourishing
in undersea sediments. 'Seeing these organisms on the ocean bottom --
it's like lifting the carpet off the floor and finding a layer that
you never knew was there,' said Eugene Domack of Hamilton College.
Domack is the lead author on the report of the finding in the July 19
issue of Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union.
..."

ABC News (Australia) reports on July 21st that "The
Victorian Government says laws criminalising witchcraft and fortune
telling are outdated and will be repealed. The offences are part of
the Vagrancy Act, which will be struck out during this session of
Parliament. The last census found there were 2,000 witches in
Victoria. Attorney-General Rob Hulls says laws banning witchcraft
have no place in a diverse society. 'This is all about ensuring we
have modern laws,' he said. 'The Vagrancy Act really belongs to a
bygone era where people were treated as vagrants and vagabonds and
were actually sent out to the colony of Victoria for their sins. I
think it's important we have modern laws.' ..."

A July 11th PRWEB Press Release announces that "Loch Ness
Investigator Bill McDonald believes he has now compiled enough
evidence to indicate what the Loch Ness Monster is, why its
been so difficult to photograph, and why the Highland Government is
covering up a new discovery that could lead to conclusive DNA
evidence. ..." There is even an alleged
Tooth. Hat Tip to John
Fleck.

Reuters reported on July 13th that "Dinosaurs may have been
fierce predators but they had a respiratory system similar to modern
birds such as the sparrow, scientists said Wednesday. Ancient beasts
such as the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex were thought to have had lungs
similar to crocodiles but researchers in the United States have
discovered the creatures had more in common with birds than reptiles
when it came to breathing. 'The pulmonary system of meat-eating
dinosaurs such as T.rex in fact shares many structural similarities
with that of modern birds, which from an engineering point of view,
may possess the most efficient respiratory system of any living
vertebrate inhabiting the land or sky,' said Leon Claessens, of
Harvard University in Massachusetts. ..."

ABC News reports on July 11th that "... it's certainly
true that all flight attendants in North America have been told cell
phones can interfere, and their procedures leave no wiggle room as to
when all those pesky phones have to be off. In addition, you'll find
many pilots absolutely convinced (without evidence) that cell phones
can interfere with the instruments up front in the cockpit, and
you'll find others outside the industry equally convinced that cell
phones are flatly dangerous to the safety of big air machines. But in
reality, there is no proof that it's true. In fact, something the
U.S. government is about to do completely invalidates the fears of
the past. ..."

It began with a July 7th New York Times Op-Ed article by Roman
Catholic Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, on the Catholic stance on
evolution. Over at the Panda's Thumb, Reed Cartwright explained it as
follows: "...he is writing to reaffirm the Catholic faiths
commitment to theistic evolution and to eliminate any confusion that
it is committed to atheistic evolution. (I have no idea why he
thought that this needed to be done.) ..."

Here is a comment from Catholic biologists Ken Miller's Op-Ed in
response to the Cardinal: "... Science is, just as John Paul II
said, silent on the issue of ultimate purpose, an issue that lies
outside the realm of scientific inquiry. This means that biological
evolution, correctly understood, does not make the claim of
purposelessness. It does not address what Simpson called the 'deeper
problem,' leaving that problem, quite properly, to the realm of
faith. Cardinal Schönborn also errs in his implicit support of
the 'intelligent design' movement in the United States. The
neo-creationists of intelligent design, unlike Popes Benedict and
John Paul, argue against evolution on every level, claiming that a
'designer' has repeatedly intervened to directly produce the complex
forms of living things. This view stands in sharp contradiction to
the words of a 2004 International Theological Commission document
cited by the Cardinal. ..."

The Catholic News Service had this to say on July
15th: "Can a bespectacled, balding 60-year-old cardinal in
Vienna waltz his way into a flap in the United States? Definitely
yes. The orchestration was proposing that the Catholic faith and
aspects of evolutionary thinking are not good dancing partners. His
suggestion stepped on the toes of those who see no conflict, while it
swayed rhythmically with supporters of 'intelligent design.'
...Jesuit Father Kevin FitzGerald, who holds doctorates in molecular
biology and philosophy, said that intelligent design advocates 'see
the unresolved problems of evolution and find data that doesn't fit
the theory.' ... 'The question of design in the universe needs to be
addressed and scientific evidence brought to bear. But the ultimate
terrain to judge this would be philosophy, not science,' he said.
'This is what intelligent design doesn't get right,' he said.
..."

Finally, in the July 15th "Tidings Online," the Cardinal says that
Catholics can accept evolution after all: "In follow-up remarks
published July 11 by Kathpress, an Austrian Catholic news agency,
Cardinal Schonborn cited Popes Pius XII and John Paul II as saying
that the theory of evolution --- as long as it remains within the
realm of science and is not made into an ideological 'dogma' which
cannot be questioned --- is in conformity with Catholic teaching. The
cardinal quoted Pope John Paul as saying in 1985 that 'the properly
understood belief in creation and the properly understood teaching of
evolution do not stand in each other's way.' ..."

The Indy Star reports on July 11th that "City officials have
turned off a streetlight that drew more than 250 people to see a
shadow that some say resembles the image of Jesus Christ. East
Chicago Police Chief Angelo Machuca called an emergency meeting
Sunday to recommend the light be turned off in the interest of public
safety after nearby residents complained about blocked cars and
visitors congregating until 5 a.m. Several arrests were made Friday
night after a large fight broke out in the area. ..."

The Orlando Sentinel reports on July 5th that "Four years ago,
as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees,
officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying unproven
methods would waste precious time and resources. But for more than
six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State
Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method -- a very
alternative method. Researchers worked with a rabbi and a
cardiologist to test 'Celestial Drops,' promoted as a canker
inhibitor because of its 'improved fractal design,' 'infinite levels
of order' and 'high energy and low entropy.' But the cure proved
useless against canker. That's because it was water -- possibly,
mystically blessed water. The 'product is a hoax and not based on any
credible known science,' the state's chief of entomology, nematology
and plant pathology wrote to agriculture officials and fellow
scientists after testing Celestial Drops in October 2001. ... So why
did Florida spend months discussing and developing test protocols for
Celestial Drops? The initial push came from Harris, now a U.S. House
representative and candidate for U.S. Senate. Harris, the
granddaughter of legendary citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin Jr., said
she was introduced to one of the product's promoters, New York Rabbi
Abe Hardoon, in 2000. Hardoon did not want to discuss Celestial Drops
when contacted by the Orlando Sentinel. ..."

The local creationist group, Creation Science Fellowship of New
Mexico (CSFNM), has transformed their website this summer to focus on
the local performance of a play about the Scopes "Monkey" trial of
1925. CSFNM tells its readers to "Mark your calendars now for this
once in a lifetime event. The play Monkey in the Middle is an exact
reenactment of the 1925 Scopes Trial using the exact words from the
trial transcript. The key events of the trial will be presented in
this reenactment at the KiMo Theater on July 29 and 30, 2005.
"

New Scientist magazine takes on creationists in the July 9, 2005
issue. An op-ed concludes that "There is no scientific controversy
between ID and evolution. The case for teaching them as valid
alternatives is no stronger than the case for teaching students about
some supposed controversy between astrology and astronomy. Lurking
beneath this debate is the issue of whether religion should make an
appearance in science classes - as the creationist movement has long
wanted it to. Here it is difficult not to suspect that the people
behind ID are being disingenuous. In their books and papers. They
would rather readers saw ID as purely scientific. Yet one of the
governing goals of the Discovery Institute, IDs spiritual home,
is to spread the word that nature and human beings are created
by God. Lets be honest. This is creationism by another
name. Tell a class of teenagers that the tail of a bacterium did not
evolve but was designed, and who will they think the designer is? ID
may qualify as a religious belief, but it is not science. Teach it in
philosophy or sociology by all means. Its proper resting place,
however, will be in history. ..."

A July 6th report on ABC News regarding creationism in the
schools notes that "This debate of ideas, normally welcome in a
classroom environment, is not embraced by instructors such as Terry
Uselton, a high school science department chairman in Knoxville,
Tenn. 'It's not about education or science, it's about politics,'
Uselton told The Associated Press during a group interview of
teachers at the National Education Association's annual meeting.
'That's the problem, and that's what we have a hard time separating
out. Part of it doesn't have anything to do with the science being
right or wrong.' ..."

ABC News reports on July 7th that "The first deep sea
red-light district glowing appendages on a newly discovered jellyfish
relative appear to flash their come-hither message to lure prey.
Jellyfish and other types of sea creatures are known to produce
light, but this is the first deep ocean invertebrate known to use red
fluorescent light, said Steven H. D. Haddock of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif. Three of the
animals were found by scientists using a remote controlled research
vehicle at depths of between 5,200 feet and 7,500 feet off the coast
of California. The discovery is reported in Friday's issue of the
journal Science. ..."

ABC News reported on July 7th that "The extinction of most
of Australia's large animals occurred around 45,000 years ago,
shortly after the arrival of humans. A study suggests that human
burning of the landscape forced dietary changes that killed off many
of the animals. Researchers studying ancient eggshells from two types
of large birds, as well as the teeth of wombats, found a change in
the types of carbon the animals had ingested, indicating a change in
diet. Before the extinction, grasses, trees and shrubs were commonly
eaten but then grasses disappeared from the animals' diet, the
researchers reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
"Humans are the major suspect," Marilyn Fogel of the Carnegie
Institution said in a statement. ..."

Nick Buchan of NEWS.com.au reports on June 27 that "Scientists
have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several
hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation
for humans. US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after
three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans
within years. Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research
has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of
blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution. The animals are
considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no
heartbeat or brain activity. But three hours later, their blood is
replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an
electric shock. ..."

Robert Roy Britt at livescience.com reports on June 27th that
"A wild idea to combat global warming suggests creating an
artificial ring of small particles or spacecrafts around Earth to
shade the tropics and moderate climate extremes. There would be side
effects, proponents admit. An effective sunlight-scattering particle
ring would illuminate our night sky as much as the full Moon, for
example. And the price tag would knock the socks off even a
big-budget agency like NASA: $6 trillion to $200 trillion for the
particle approach. Deploying tiny spacecraft would come at a relative
bargain: a mere $500 billion tops. But the idea, detailed today in
the online version of the journal Acta Astronautica, illustrates that
climate change can be battled with new technologies, according to one
scientist not involved in the new work. ..."

The Discovery Institute announced on June 22nd that "Discovery
Institute has sent a letter to the Pennsylvania State Legislature
opposing a proposed bill that would authorize school districts to
require the teaching of intelligent design. In a letter to Rep. Jess
M. Stairs, Chair of Pennsylvania's House Education Committee,
Discovery Institute officials stated that they 'strongly oppose any
effort by the government to mandate the teaching of intelligent
design.' ..."

ABC News reports on June 20th that "To examine data on the
universe's earliest stars and galaxies from a balloon-launched
telescope, scientists had to fend off earthly creatures in the
Canadian Arctic. The telescope landed there by parachute Saturday and
was quickly surrounded by wildlife. 'The secret of our universe's
beginnings was being protected by caribou and polar bears,' said John
Kageorge, communications manager for AMEC Dynamic Structures Ltd. in
this Vancouver suburb. 'As it turns out, the scientists needed to go
back with a rifle to protect themselves.' ..."

The Cox News Service reported on June 5th that "... No doubt
spurred by the success of 'Lost,' supernatural dramas will be
plentiful. If you have a yen for creepiness, chances are good that at
least one of the six supernatural newcomers will strike your fancy.
Look for the 'Medium'-inspired 'Ghost Whisperer,' starring Jennifer
Love Hewitt, on CBS; 'Threshold,' about government preparations for
an alien invasion; more aliens arriving in ABC's 'Invasion';
'Fathom,' NBC's sci-fi saga about menacing sea life; 'Night Stalker,'
ABC's revival of the supernatural crime drama; and the WB's
'Supernatural,' about two brothers searching for their father and
battling otherworldly evil. ..."

The Washington Post announced on June 21st that "An ambitious
bipartisan plan to slow U.S. greenhouse gases with an emissions
trading program collapsed in the Senate on Tuesday after a key
Republican threw his support behind a weaker, voluntary plan. ...
Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Republican chairman of the Senate Energy
Committee, said last week he might co-sponsor Democrat Jeff
Bingaman's more stringent plan to slow the growth of U.S. greenhouse
gases with an emissions trading program beginning in 2010 tied to
U.S. economic growth. But after talking to the White House and other
Republicans, Domenici said he would not support the Bingaman measure.
'This is just too tough to do quickly,' Domenici said. ... The
Bingaman plan was based on the results of a bipartisan energy study
commission. Environmental groups expressed lukewarm support for it,
saying it did not go far enough. After losing Domenici's support,
Bingaman said he would not offer his approach as an amendment to the
energy bill. ..."

The NY Times reported on June 21st that "...on the basis
of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that
people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes
and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The new
research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's
general approach to social issues - more conservative or more
progressive - is influenced by genes. Environmental influences like
upbringing, the study suggests, play a more central role in party
affiliation as a Democrat or Republican, much as they do in
affiliation with a sports team. ..."

Reuters reports on June 21st that "A common virus that is
harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in the body and might
be developed into a new cancer therapy, U.S. researchers said on
Tuesday. The virus, called adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2,
infects an estimated 80 percent of the population. 'Our results
suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the
majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills
multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,'
said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the
Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania. 'We believe that
AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys
them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as
an anti-cancer agent,' Meyers said in a statement. ..."

Space.com reports on June 17th that "The National Science
Foundation agreed to halt construction of a $13 million mountainside
telescope complex after an American Indian tribe filed a federal
lawsuit claiming the site is sacred. The foundation said it will work
with the Tohono O'odham Nation to assess the environmental and
cultural value of the Kitt Peak area before resuming work on what the
lead scientist said would be the most advanced system of its kind in
the northern hemisphere. 'We are being very deferential to ensure
that the tribe is on board every step of the way,' said Charisse
Carney-Nunes, a foundation attorney. The tribe, which claims 24,000
members, withdrew a motion to halt the construction but said it will
press the litigation. The lawsuit, filed in March, claims that the
National Historic Preservation Act requires the foundation to consult
with the tribe and the state Historic Preservation Office because
Kitt Peak is considered sacred. In the Tohono O'odham creation story,
the universe gave birth to the world thanks to I'itoi, the deity who
lives at Baboquivari Peak south of Kitt Peak. ..."

Don't forget tomorrow's meeting of the Coalition for Excellence in
Science and Math Education, Saturday, June 25, from 1:00 to 4:00 PM,
at the University of New Mexico Law School, Room 2402. The featured
speaker is John Trever, award-winning editorial cartoonist at the
Albuquerque Journal. Please attend!

An Anonymous Donor has stepped forward, and has made it possible
for Creation Watch to be on every week for a period of several
months!! Stay Tuned for an announcement of the beginning of Creation
Watch WEEKLY, on Progressive Talk 1350 AM!!

And it's not pretty, folks. Here's what Forbes said about the man
who has brought his perpetual motion snake-oil show to New Mexico
three times in the last decade: "Certain investors think there is
money to be made from perpetual motion machines. Evidently there is
one of these characters born every minute. Dennis Lee's prey include:
environmentalists who want a nonpolluting energy source; religious
devotees who believe in his Bible-quoting rhetoric; conspiracy
theorists who believe that powerful forces in government and big
business seek to control world commerce; and working people who think
that a home business might be a good way to augment their income. All
have fallen under the sway of this graying, sometimes wild-eyed man
of 59, the founder of an assortment of enterprises with names like
Better World Technologies. Lee, if you believe him, has a way to
create electricity without burning fuel. ..."

Peggy Fletcher Stack of the The Salt Lake Tribune writes on June
12th that "Over the years, the LDS Church has rarely stepped into
the fight over evolution. Certainly, as religious people, Mormons see
God's hand in the origins of the universe, the world and its
inhabitants. ... The official LDS Church position has remained steady
from a 1931 First Presidency statement to a 1993 packet handed out at
BYU students: 'Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology,
none of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind,
to scientific research.' ... According to a 2002 book, Where Darwin
Meets the Bible, LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley shares that
view. Recalling his own study of anthropology and geology, Hinckley
said, 'Studied all about it. Didn't worry me then. Doesn't worry me
now.' Such openness has meant that several BYU scientists have
produced important research in the field of dinosaurs, anthropology
and evolution.' ..."

Carl Zimmer mentions the latest on Homo floresiensis,
a.k.a. "The Hobbit," in his June 15th
"Loom" column: "Its been almost eight months now
since scientists announced the discovery of Homo floresiensis, the
diminutive people that some claim belong to a new branch of hominid
evolution and skeptics claim were just small humans. We seem to have
entered a lull in the flow of new scientific information about Homo
floresiensis. ... For those who keep up on this stuff, I see a couple
interesting new tidbits. 1. A lot of Teuku Jacob's arguments against
this being a new species seem wacky to me, at least as they've been
presented in the press. In the LA Times, he 'argues that evolution
cannot 'go backward' and produce a human with a smaller brain.'
Perhaps Jacob will eventually make this case at length in a
scientific paper, but for now I'd just say that there's no Law of the
Perpetually Increasing Brain that I'm familiar with. Teuku Jacob took
possession over the bones for a few months, and when he returned
them, their discoverers claimed the delicate fossils were damaged.
The damages included what appeared to be an attempt to reconstruct
the jaw. ...2. ... For the first time that Im aware of, Jacob
admits that he was trying to 'improve' the skull. 'We tried to
improve some of the things,' he acknowledged. 'We didn't damage any
bones. Actually, we improved some.' Improve, or match your
preconceptions? 3. As if this wasnt bad enough, the controversy
has now resulted in a complete halt to digging in the cave where the
original fossils were found. Apparently the team that discovered the
fossils didnt get the proper permits from the Indonesian
Institute of Science, although they believed they had. Now the
Institute has decided that digging should stop, so that the dispute
wont get worse. ..."

Space.com reports on June 13th that "Astronomers announced
today the discovery of the smallest planet so far found outside of
our solar system. About seven-and-a-half times as massive as Earth,
and about twice as wide, this new extrasolar planet may be the first
rocky world ever found orbiting a star similar to our own. 'This is
the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new
class of rocky terrestrial planets,' said team member Paul Butler of
the Carnegie Institution of Washington. 'It's like Earth's bigger
cousin.' Currently around 150 extrasolar planets are known, and the
number continues to grow. But most of these far-off worlds are large
gas giants like Jupiter. Only recently have astronomers started
detecting smaller massed objects. ..."

The Discovery Institute started the "Evolution News &
Views" blog recently: "The misreporting of the evolution
issue is one key reason for this new blog. The newsmedia in the U.S.
seem to have rediscovered the evolution controversy recently.
Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate,
and in several cases, overtly biased. ..."

Well, they must be overjoyed that someone in the Media is paying
attention. That's right - the folks at Weekly World News have signed
on to Intelligent Design!

Ed Anger of the Weekly World News wrote in his April 20, 2004
column "I'm madder than Adam with a one-inch fig leaf at how these
left-wing heathens, atheists and agnostics are trying to stuff this
evolution baloney down our kids' throats! ... Now over in Missouri,
they've come up with a mighty fair idea: A bill that would require
teaching the theory of intelligent design right alongside Darwin's
theory of evolution, both getting equal time. Why shouldn't kids be
exposed to the valid scientific hypothesis that says everything in
the Bible is true and God made Eve out of Adam's rib? That way
they'll be free to make up their own minds -- instead of being told
what to think by a pack of God-hating pinkos. ..."

Nature reports on June 2nd that "Male and female fruitflies
have been engineered to switch courtship roles, through the
manipulation of a single gene. The study, which appears in Cell,
shows how a simple genetic adjustment can cause a dramatic change in
sexual behaviour. 'It was quite something to see,' says Barry
Dickson, who is one of the authors and is based at the Austrian
Academy of Sciences in Vienna. ... the researchers caution that
controls on a fruitfly's sexual behaviour are undoubtedly different
from our own. 'In the case of humans, we know that our sexual
behaviours are not irreversibly set by our genes,' says Dickson. 'But
that doesn't mean the genes have no influence,' he adds. ..."

In a June 2nd editorial, The Albuquerque Tribune opined "It
seems like every time you turn around these days, there is an assault
on science in America. It's not good for the country, its people, its
political system or its economy. Still, from school boards trying to
install religious creationism as science in public school classrooms,
to the Oval Office ignoring the overwhelming scientific consensus on
global warming, political institutions are side-stepping science and
compromising public policy, based on political ideology, religious
preference, commercial favoritism and plain, old prejudice. The
latest attack is right here in Albuquerque, where the Southwest
Region director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has arbitrarily
decided to limit the use of genetics in making official decisions on
protecting endangered animals and plants. Fortunately, scientists and
other Fish and Wildlife officials are not taking Director Dale Hall's
anti-science, pro-development edict lying down. They are complaining
- and well they should. So are environmental and conservation
organizations, which at the first opportunity should challenge Hall's
decision legally. ..."

William H. Jefferys of The University of Texas at Austin has
reviewed the book The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the
Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W.
Richards, the source for the movie of the same name. Jefferys
observes "But, if the universe had been designed by a sufficiently
powerful designer, the constants would not have to be right in order
for us to exist. For example, the designer could create a universe
where the constants are not right for the production of carbon and
oxygen in the interiors of stars, preferring instead (for whatever
reason: whim, or the desire to accomplish other goals such as letting
us know that he exists by means of a subtle scientific clue) just to
manufacture the required carbon atoms and sprinkle them where needed
throughout the universe. ... which means that our observing that 'the
constants are right' actually provides powerful evidence in favor of
the naturalistic hypothesis. It would actually be our observing that
'the constants are wrong' that would undermine, and in fact refute
the naturalistic hypothesis. The ID creationists have the inequality
backwards. ..."

Richard B. Hoppe writes in The
Panda's Thumb on June 7 about the case of one Bryan Leonard, a
doctoral candidate in science education at the Ohio State University,
whose dissertation is about an ID-based critical analysis
approach to teaching evolution in public schools. The problem, Hoppe
notes, is "the composition of the committee that was to conduct
the examination." The Science Education Ph.D. program
requires that "Upon completion of the [candidacy]
examination, the student may reorganize the committee to reflect the
expertise needed for the dissertation. The dissertation committee
must have at least three members: two from the science education
program area and one from outside the science education program
area." Hoppe notes that "there are no members of
Leonards dissertation committee who are specialists in science
education or in evolutionary biology, even though Leonards
dissertation is specifically directed at methods of teaching
evolutionary biology in public school science classes. The two senior
tenured members of the committee, DiSilvestro and Needham, in fact
share a single salient qualification: they have both publicly
associated themselves with the intelligent design creationist
movement in Ohio and elsewhere. ..."

CNN reported on June 8th that "The Tulsa Zoo will add a
display featuring the biblical account of creation following
complaints to a city board about other displays with religious
significance, including a Hindu elephant statue. The Tulsa Park and
Recreation Board voted 3-1 on Tuesday in favor of a display depicting
God's creation of the world in six days and his rest on the seventh,
as told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. ... Zoo employees,
religious leaders and others spoke in opposition, saying religion
shouldn't be part of the taxpayer-funded scientific institution. But
those who favored the creationist exhibit, including Mayor Bill
LaFortune, argued that the zoo already displayed religious items,
including the statue of the Hindu god, Ganesh, outside the elephant
exhibit and a marble globe inscribed with an American Indian saying:
'The earth is our mother. The sky is our father.' ...Zoo officials
had argued that the zoo does not advocate religion and that displays
like the elephant statue are meant to show the animal's image among
cultures. The same exhibit includes the Republican Party's elephant
symbol. ..."

Several science anc civil liberties groups have filed amicus
briefs in support of a recent U.S. District Court decision, Selman v.
Cobb County School District, which ruled that evolution disclaimers
mandated for Cobb County, Georgia, public school textbooks were
unconstitutional. The "friend of the court briefs" were filed in the
eleventh circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in response to an
appeal seeking to overturn the Selman decision. In addition to the
National Center for Science Education and People for the American
Way, amicus briefs supporting the Selman decision were also submitted
by the National Science Teachers Association, the National
Association of Biology Teachers, Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish
Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women and The Interfaith
Alliance, the Witherspoon Society and the Clergy and Laity Network,
the American Jewish Congress, coalitions of grassroots pro-science
organizations, and a coalition of fifty-six scientific organizations,
including the National Academy of Sciences and the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. NMSR is proud to be
one of the organizations supporting good science in Georgia.

Emma Ross of ABC News writes on June 8th that "A woman's
ability to have an orgasm is at least partly determined by her genes
and can't be blamed entirely on cultural influences, new research
suggests. ... The similarity in orgasm experience was greater in
identical twins than it was in non-identical twins, Spector said.
Because the only difference between the two groups was genetic, the
researchers concluded that the gap between the groups was the genetic
component. ..."

The Guardian (UK) commented on June 8th that "Tim Spector
of St Thomas's hospital in London, who led the research, said: 'The
theory is that the orgasm is an evolutionary way of seeing if men can
prove themselves to be likely good providers or dependable, patient
and caring enough to look after the kids.' Women who orgasm very
easily may be more likely to be satisfied with poor quality men.
..."

Not so fast, says Lisa Lloyd on the "Philosophy of
Biology" Blog for June 9th, as she writes "Here is a passage
from the Guardian, which is apparently a paraphrase from Spector:
'The genetic control over how easily women experience an orgasm
during sex shows it is subject to evolutionary pressure, which means
it must confer a biological advantage.' But this is just a mistake. A
genetic basis to the trait shows no such thing. It shows that the
trait is a candidate for natural selection, but
it also equally well could have arisen as an embryological byproduct
of selection on the male orgasm, much as the male nipple arose as a
byproduct of selection on the female nipple. ..."

ABC News reports on June 1st that "A recent series of
studies has gone beyond asking basic questions about the brain, such
as how we speak or tell our limbs to move, and is probing more
complex areas of cognition. Some researchers now want to know how we
understand metaphors, why we "get" sarcasm (or don't), and how soon
we become cynical. ...Candice Mills, a graduate student in psychology
at Yale University, recently surveyed Connecticut schoolchildren ages
6 to 12 to find out how early they learned to process information
with a grain of salt. 'We tend to think of children as being
extremely gullible -- that they believe everything they hear," said
Mills who recently earned her doctorate at Yale. 'We wanted to see
how true that was.' True to predictions, children younger than 8
years old in the survey proved to be fairly gullible. But, to their
surprise, 8- to 12-year-olds turned out to be a very cynical bunch.
..."

ABC News reported on June 1st "Trust in a bottle? It
sounds like a marketer's fantasy, like the fabled fountain of youth
or the wild claims of fad diets. Yet that's what Swiss and American
scientists demonstrate in new experiments with a nasal spray
containing the hormone oxytocin. After a few squirts, human subjects
were significantly more trusting and willing to invest money with no
ironclad promise of a profit. The researchers acknowledged their
findings could be abused by con artists or even sleazy politicians
who might sway an election, provided they could squirt enough voters
on their way to the polls. ..."

The NY Times reports on June 3rd that "The Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History has withdrawn its
co-sponsorship of a showing later this month of a film that supports
the theory of 'intelligent design.' The museum said it would not
cancel the screening of the film, 'The Privileged Planet,' but will
return the $16,000 that the Discovery Institute, an organization that
promotes a skeptical view of the Darwinian theory of evolution, had
paid it. Proposals for events at the National Museum of Natural
History are reviewed by members of the staff, and it co-sponsors all
events. After the news of the showing caused controversy, however,
officials of the museum screened ''Privileged Planet'' for
themselves.'The major problem with the film is the wrap-up,' said
Randall Kremer, a museum spokesman. 'It takes a philosophical bent
rather than a clear statement of the science, and that's where we
part ways with them.' ..."

MFSB.com (Connecticut) reports on June 2 that "Norwich
police have made an arrest in a murder that went unsolved for over a
year. Gary McAvoy was arrested yesterday for the 2004 murder of
science writer Eugene Mallove. The writer was found dead last May on
the lawn of his family's home they were renting in Norwich. Police
believed the 56-year-old Mallove was killed during a robbery.
Detectives said McAvoy had been a suspect in the murder for some
time. However, they said they recently gathered evidence needed to
arrest him. ..."

UPI reports on June 3rd that "A University of Utah study
of Ashkenazi Jews suggests an unusual link between their genetic
diseases and their higher intellectual ability. The study, to appear
in Cambridge University's Journal of Biosocial Science, says this
unusual pattern of diseases among the Ashkenazis of central and
northern Europe is the result of natural selection for enhanced
intellectual ability. The study says the selective force was the
restriction of Ashkenazim in medieval Europe to occupations that
required more than usual mental agility, the New York Times reported
Friday. The study has received mixed reaction, with some scientists
saying the finding is extremely implausible. Others say the
researchers have made an interesting case. The Utah researchers say
Ashkenazic diseases like Tay-Sachs are a side effect of genes that
promote intelligence. They say for some 900 years Jews in Europe were
restricted to managerial occupations, which were intellectually
demanding. In the United States, Ashkenazi Jews make up 3 percent of
the American population but have won 27 percent of its Nobel prizes.
They also account for more than half of world chess champions.
..."

This is not news to NMSR members, who got the scoop directly
from author Gregory Cochran at the NMSR meeting of March 10th,
2004.

NMSR to be on
PAX TV Saturday, JUNE 4th, 8 PM...

The "BIBLE CONTROVERSIES" edition of "Faith Under
Fire," hosted by Lee Strobel on PAX TV, will air on
Saturday, June 4th, at 8:00 PM (but check local listings). This
is Show No. 126 (June 4, 2005). Pne of the three segments concerns
"Secret Bible Codes." Here's the pitch: "Secret codes.
You saw them in National Treasure. You read about them in The Da
Vinci Code. Is it possible that there are actually secret codes in
the Bible! And if there is some kind of code in the Bible, why is it
there? Two mathematicians debate the existence of Bible codes.
Insurance actuarial consultant Ed Sherman, author of the Bible Code
Bombshell, says he tried to disprove the code notion but ended up
being convinced of its authenticity. Physicist Dr. Dave Thomas the
author of Skeptical Odysseys and a member of the Committee for
Scientific of Claims of the Paranormal, remains
unconvinced...."

Businesswire.com reported on May 23rd that "Results of a
national survey of 1,472 physicians revealed that more than half of
physicians (63%) agree that the theory of evolution is more correct
than intelligent design. The study was conducted by the Louis
Finkelstein Institute for Social and Religious Research at The Jewish
Theological Seminary and HCD Research in Flemington, New Jersey, from
May 13-15. ..."

The Discovery Institute re-did the math, and came up with a
completely different conclusion: "Poll: 60 Percent of Doctors
Reject Darwinism." Jonathan Witt writes on May 24th that
"Questioned about the origin and development of human beings, only
38% agreed with the Darwinian story that 'humans evolved naturally
with no supernatural involvement--no divinity played any role.' In
contrast, 42% said that 'God initiated and guided an evolutionary
process that has led to current human beings.' That
scenario involves intelligent design and, thus,
contradicts the Neo-Darwinian account. Another 18% of doctors said
"God created humans exactly as they appear now." Thus, 60%
of doctors take an ID position. ..."

Clearly, the Discovery Institute's Witt is claiming that "Theistic
Evolution" (the view that "God initiated and guided an
evolutionary process that has led to current human beings") is a
position favored by Intelligent Design
(ID) advocates - he adds the 18% of doctors who say "God
created humans exactly as they appear now" to the 42% who are
theistic evolutionists, to yield 60% total taking "an
ID position."

Theres a fly in the ointment, of course. And that is that
"theistic evolution" is anathema, even heresy, to those
in the ID movement.

And top ID theorist William Dembski says "Howard Van
Tills review of my book No Free Lunch exemplifies perfectly why
theistic evolution remains intelligent designs most
implacable foe. Not only does theistic evolution sign off
on the naturalism that pervades so much of contemporary science, but
it justifies that naturalism theologically  as though it were
unworthy of God to create by any means other than an evolutionary
process that carefully conceals Gods tracks. ..."

The Discovery Institute and its allies are now on record saying
that "theistic evolution" is both a PRO-ID and an
ANTI-ID position. Lucky for us, someone has written a good book
on just such abuse of language by polemicists. It's called
"1984" by George Orwell. "Ignorance Is Knowledge" is
precisely the same sort of doublethink that Witt and Dembski
are eagerly promoting today. And it shows why ID must be
kept out of science classes.

Work of Archimedes recovered
under Monk's Graffiti...

ABC News reported on May 23rd that "A particle accelerator
is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek
mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian
monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages. Highly focused X-rays produced
at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to
begin deciphering the parts of the 174-page text that have not yet
been revealed. The X-rays cause iron in the hidden ink to glow.
..."

Albuquerque's KRQE-TV 13 had an item on the May 24th news entitled
"New Mexico plays part in latest doomsday prediction." It was about
the Mayan calendar, which some say shows The End of The World As We
Know It (TEOTWAWKI) slated for December 21st, 2012. I was
interviewed for the segment, and had this to say on-air: "Thomas
says for most of us, the year 2012 will be no big deal, and those
dire predictions are nothing new. 'They failed in 2000, they failed
in 2003 with Planet X, they failed in 2004 with Toutatis, and they're
going to fail in 2012 with the Mayan calendar change.' [Thomas
said] ...Will 2012 be a new beginning, or the end? We'll find out
in less than 3000 days. ..."

The Asbury Park Press reported on Bruce Springsteen's new album
and tour on May 19th, noting that "When it comes to lambasting a
fundamentalism that he believes can be toxic, Springsteen has
realized that ridicule can be an effective tool. He prefaced his
performance of the reggae-influenced B-side 'Part Man, Part Monkey'
with a rap about efforts to discourage the teaching of evolution in
public schools. In New Jersey, he said, joking with the audience, 'we
believe in evolution  it's our only hope.' ..."

Channel KCRA (California) reports on May 20th that "A
home in Sacramento's south Natomas neighborhood is surrounded by
sheet metal, and neighbors are calling it an eyesore. The D'Souza
family lives in the home on Timberwood Court, and claims the
aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from unknown neighbors
who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick.
'(It's) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave
radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it's a protective
measure,' resident Sarah D'Souza said. ..."

WBOC TV (Maryland) reports on May 18th that "In
Dover, Pennsylvania, a party-line split emerged in a school board
primary. The election drew national attention after the board's
decision to require that ninth-grade students be told about
"intelligent design" when they learn about evolution. Republicans
picked seven incumbent school board members who support the policy,
while Democrats nominated seven who say the idea is biblical
creationism cloaked in secular language. Democrats say public schools
can teach about 'intelligent design' -- just not in science classes.
..."

In this week's summaries of the recent Kansas Evolution
"Hearings," there's a detailed analysis by Stan Cox in
Alternet for May 19th: "[ID witness]Warren Nord
enthusiastically recommended that schools should wrap every subject,
including biology, in its religious and philosophical context. An
incredulous Irigonegaray asked him, 'Is it important to have religion
taught in economics class?' Nord: 'Yes.' Irigonegaray: 'What about
math class?' Nord: 'I can make a case for that.' ..."

And Andrew Gumbel has a very good discussion in Los Angeles City
Beat for May 19th: "Nobody can seriously claim that all
questions in evolutionary science have been resolved, or that the
finer points of microbial development are not subject to debate and
disagreement. But it is one thing to critique various schools of
cutting-edge evolutionary theory; quite another to say that because
certain questions remain unresolved that they are unresolvable,
except by invocation of a higher power ...Another manifestation of
the misdirection of the ID movement is the ludicrous notion that high
schools are the appropriate venue for intricate debate about the
finer points of evolutionary science. Any public school science
teacher will tell you its already a minor miracle if a
16-year-old can accurately summarize The Origin of Species, or
pinpoint the Galapagos Islands on an atlas. Raising questions about
the cellular structure of the flagellum is unlikely to exercise most
students until grad school. The only reason for raising such
questions before state education authorities is not to deepen the
scientific understanding of teenagers but rather to sow deliberate
confusion. It is about denigrating mainstream science as biased
against religion  which it is not ..."

Finally, another good editorial appears in the May 18th Pratt
Tribune: "It seems extremely important to the proponents of
intelligent design that children are exposed to their theory before
the scientific community has accepted even the smallest part of it.
No other central scientific theory has ever sought or won approval in
this manner. Indeed, it is particularly telling that no other fringe
theory - and I.D. is a fringe theory - is clamoring for equal time in
high school classrooms or equal space in science standards. Even the
wackiest are making their fight in the halls of academia.
..."

Lawrence Krauss, writing in the May 17th New York Times,
notes that "Popes from Pius XII to John Paul II have reaffirmed
that the process of evolution in no way violates the teachings of the
church. Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
presided over the church's International Theological Commission,
which stated that 'since it has been demonstrated that all living
organisms on earth are genetically related, it is virtually certain
that all living organisms have descended from this first organism.'
..."

ABC News reports on May 18th that "Californians wondering
if tomorrow's forecast will be sunny can now find out if there's also
a chance of afternoon tremors. Scientists launched a Web site
Wednesday that calculates the probability of strong ground-shaking at
specific locations over a 24-hour period. The forecast maps, updated
hourly, would be most useful after a temblor strong enough to break
windows and crack plaster, according to U.S. Geological Survey
seismologist Matthew Gerstenberger, who developed the site.
..."

ABC News reported on May 19th that "If winning is
everything, British anthropologists have some advice: Wear red. Their
survey of four sports at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens shows
competitors were more likely to win their contests if they wore red
uniforms or red body armor. 'Across a range of sports, we find that
wearing red is consistently associated with a higher probability of
winning,' report Russell A. Hill and Robert A. Barton of the
University of Durham in England. Their findings are in Thursday's
issue of the journal Nature. ..."

Thanks to the Trib for plugging NMSR's radio experiment on its web
site: "Science education debate goes on air- The battle over
creationism is hitting New Mexico's airwaves Saturday. The group New
Mexicans for Science and Reason is teaming up with KABQ-1350
Progressive Talk for a live radio show from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. The
group will discuss efforts in the state and around the country to
keep Christian creationism and intelligent design theories out of
school science classrooms. The show will also include trivia
questions, call-ins and prize giveaways, Thomas said. ..."

Writing in the May 9th Baltimore Chronicle, columnist Jason S.
Miller writes "Ringling Brothers could not rival the hype of the
circus of events dubbed 'Scopes II.' Led by its three 'ringmasters'
(Kathy Martin, Steve Abrams, and Connie Morris), the Kansas State
School Board has once again put the theory of Evolution on trial.
Despite the lack of testimony from a single member of the
established, mainstream scientific community, 'the show must go on'
as the board 'proves' that Evolution is dubious at best. The purpose
of this extravaganza is to 'validate' the new science standards they
desperately want to implement, and they are determined to 'bring home
the win' this time. ..."

The hearings have ended, acrimoniously. Scott Rothschild of
the Lawrence Journal-World writes on May 13th that "Historic
hearings on evolution that attracted international attention ended
Thursday in acrimony, tears, finger-pointing and heated exchanges.
Pedro Irigonegaray, a Topeka attorney defending evolution, was at the
center of the dispute when he refused to be cross-examined after
delivering a two-hour verbal attack, blasting critics of evolution.
'This was a gigantic waste of money and an insult to Kansas
teachers,' Irigonegaray said of the hearings on science standards
that will be used as a guide for instruction of science to Kansas
public school students. ... on Thursday when conservative State Board
of Education members and attorney John Calvert, director of an
intelligent design organization, sought to cross-examine
Irigonegaray, he refused. 'I am not a witness,' Irigonegaray said.
'My personal views are irrelevant.' ... During a short break in the
hearing, Irigonegaray went to shake Calvert's hand, but Calvert
refused. 'I don't think he is playing by the rules,' Calvert said.
But Irigonegaray said he was the attorney representing mainstream
scientists -- not a witness -- and he never agreed to be
cross-examined. ..."

Red State Rabble's Take (May 13, 2005): "Irigonegaray's
refusal to be questioned as a witness marked the first time during
these odd proceedings that a participant actually played the role
assigned to him. John Calvert, like the primadonna who wants to play
every part in the school play, acted not only as counsel for the
intelligent design minority, but as witness, and behind the scenes
board advisor, as well. Board members Steve Abrams, Connie Morris,
and Kathy Martin acted not as jurists who impartially weighed the
testimony of the 23 intelligent design witnesses, but as cheerleaders
for them. ..."

Nature reports on May 3rd that "After spending more than a year
assessing 169 active volcanoes in the United States and the Mariana
Islands, experts have identified the volcanoes that pose the greatest
threat to people and property. ..." The top three include Kilauea
(Hawaii), and St Helens and Rainier (Washington).

And Adam Rankin of the Albuquerque Journal writes on May 11th that
"The Valles Caldera, a 14-mile-wide volcanic bowl in the center of
the Jemez Mountains and the heart of the Valles Caldera National
Preserve, is far from being a dead volcano. The U.S. Geological
Survey ranks it as a moderate threat for an eruption, placing it 65th
for volcanic hazards among the nation's 169 volcanoes evaluated in
its most recent study. ..."

Nature reports on May 4th that "Saturn's small, lumpy moon
Phoebe isn't native to its home planet, scientists have confirmed.
Instead the lump of rock was captured by Saturn's gravity from rubble
left after the formation of the Solar System. ..."

John Noble Wilford The New York Times writes on May 12th that
"They live in the forests and limestone outcrops of Laos. With
long whiskers, stubby legs and a long, furry tail, they are rodents
but unlike any seen before by wildlife scientists. They are
definitely not rats or squirrels, only vaguely like a guinea pig or a
chinchilla. And they often show up in Laotian outdoor markets being
sold for food. There, visiting scientists came upon the animals and
determined that they represented a rare find: an entire new family of
wildlife. ... 'To find something so distinct in this day and age is
just extraordinary,' said Robert Timmins of the Wildlife Conservation
Society, one of the discoverers. 'For all we know, this could be the
last remaining mammal family left to be discovered.' ... They are
definitely not rats or squirrels, only vaguely like a guinea pig or a
chinchilla. And they often show up in Laotian outdoor markets being
sold for food. There, visiting scientists came upon the animals and
determined that they represented a rare find: an entire new family of
wildlife. ..."

Steve Reuland at the Panda's Thumb writes on May 12th "It sure
does look delicious. While I dont know any details about this
new mammal, there are several predictions I can make about it based
on our knowledge of evolution: It will have red
blood cells that lack nuclei; It will have three middle ear bones; It
will have continuously growing incisors; It will be endothermic.
..."

All American Patriots/Vermont News reports on March 7th that
"Vermont Attorney General William H. Sorrell announced today that
a state court has granted his offices request for remedies
against a New Jersey free electricity promoter, Dennis
Lee, doing business as United Community Services of America (UCSA).
The remedies include a permanent ban on Lees doing business in
Vermont and an award of over $40,000 to the State. ..."

Jennifer Lee of The New York Times writes on May 12th that
"Powerball lottery officials suspected fraud: How could 110
players in the March 30 drawing get five of the six numbers right?
That made them all second-prize winners, and considering the number
of tickets sold in the 29 states where the game is played, there
should have been only four or five. But from state after state they
kept coming in, the 1-in-3-million combination of 22, 28, 32, 33, 39.
It took some time before they had their answer: The players got their
numbers inside fortune cookies, and all the cookies came from the
same factory in Long Island City, Queens. ... Earlier that month, an
ABC television show, 'Lost,' included a sequence of winning lottery
numbers. The combination didn't match the Powerball numbers, though
hundreds of people had played it: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. Numbers on
a Powerball ticket in a recent episode of a soap opera, 'The Young
and the Restless,' didn't match, either. Nor did the winning numbers
form a pattern on the lottery grid, like a cross or a diagonal. Then
the winners started arriving at lottery offices. 'Our first winner
came in and said it was a fortune cookie,' said Rebecca Paul, chief
executive of the Tennessee Lottery. ... Same story in Idaho, Texas,
Kansas, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Minnesota. ..."

The Albuquerque Tribune reported on May 4th that "A documentary
not aired on one TV station after furor over its content and funding
is getting a new life at another one. 'Unlocking the Mystery of
Life,' which challenges Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, will
air at 4 p.m. May 22 on KOB-Channel 4. Officials at KOB say their
decision to air the show was a simple business transaction. 'It (the
documentary) is really no different than a paid political show,' said
Susan Connors, KOB station manager. 'We are a commercial television
station, and we reviewed the program and there was nothing that was
inconsistent with our policy to air a paid program.' The station
would not disclose the amount Intelligent Design Network-New Mexico
paid to air the program. The program will run with a disclaimer that
the content does not reflect KOB's views. ..."

Had the Trib read last month's NMSR Reports, they would
have learned that one can simply call KOB, and ask how much it would
cost to run an infomercial at a given time. When we did so last
month, we found that it will cost IDnet about $8,000 to air the ID
infomercial.

And, courtesy of our crack NMSR investigative team, here is some
direct confirmation of the cost from the Christian fundraising group
that helped IDnet raise the required cash. This information comes
from www.rges.cc/news/050214.htm,
a web page of the "Rio Grande Enrichment Studies, L.L.C.," a local
group "Helping the Homeschool Family Succeed Since 1994." The news
writer for this group is one Mark Burton, a nice chap we had
lunch with several times during NMSR's internet debate a few years
back with the Creation Science Fellowship of New Mexico, which Burton
represents. (See http://www.nmsr.org/debate.htm.)
The RGES news for Feb. 14, 2005 states "Latest on Channel 4 and
Unlocking the Mystery of Life. KOB cost for 60 min is $7200, a good
deal for about half of prime time. We are shooting for airing of
Unlocking on March 13 at 4 pm. This is an important event for ID in
New Mexico and another step along the way to objective science
education based on the empirical evidence, not a materialistic
ideology. Remember that each challenge or victory anywhere
is shared by all states in which the battle is being
fought. Please put the word out in your churches
and to friends regarding this time-urgent need for
financial support. Contributions are tax-deductible. Anything beyond
the cost of airing the program goes toward advertising and the
IDnet-NM general fund to be used specifically to support the costs of
procurement and distribution of DVDs such as Unlocking to science
teachers all over New Mexico. If contributions fall
substantially below the needed $7200, we will delay airing of the
video until we have the needed funds. I don't think that will be a
problem. Please make checks out to IDnet-NM with the note
"for Unlocking" and mail to: Joe Renick, IDnet-NM ..."

As happened last month, backstage intrigues continue. The
"Privileged Planet" was also going to be shown on May 29th on KOB,
but that has vanished, leaving only Unlocking set for May 22nd.

But wait - there's more! It turns out that Mark Burton, in
addition to raising money to show creation vidoes on television, has
also been in the local news for a completely different reason -
breast art on Albuquerque's Central Avenue. Burton was on KOB 770 AM
radio recently to encourage people to sign his petition, which
protested the bare breasts on a mural at the "Snob Hill" merchant in
Nob Hill.

Here's the scoop from the "Quirky Burque" Blog:

It's spring in Albuquerque. The breasts are out on
parade and the Morality Police are fuming at the indecency.
Apparently, the mural at Snob Hill Body Jewelry on Central Ave is
the latest target, deemed obscene and patently offensive. So
offensive that some hard-up bible-thumper is currently circulating
the following petition to homes in Nob Hill.

... note how the little sexless bastard couldn't RESIST from
including a photo of those hot juicy breasts in his flyer.

READER UPDATE: If you didn't guess it already -- the address
on the flyer happens to be home to the Baptist Conservative
Foothills Fellowship -- 12504 Candelaria Rd NE 294-0016.

NEWS UPDATE: The blogosphere reacts to ABQ's Breast
Police.

Just when you thought nobody noticed what goes down in dusty
little Duke City... the world's blogonauts are VERY UNHAPPY about
Albuquerque's Breast Police...

A blogger in London: The Brits are laughing at us and
thinking, ahh... quite nice to be rid of the bloody
Puritans.

A blogger in Australia who's using the Snob Hill image as
his blog header(!): Australian guy named Lambie thinks we're
prudish. (Um, that's an affirmative.)

A blogger in NY: Aaron just finds it interesting that we
have Breast Police in ABQ. ...

You can ogle the the Lusty & Lecherous "Foothills
Fellowship Petition" HERE
!

Burton's Foothills Fellowship church is several miles from Nob
Hill, but that hasn't stopped the church from telling Nob Hill a
thing or two about Morality. The comical thing is that Mark Burton,
by being on the radio promoting his petition, and by including the
offending breasts on that petition, has helped spread the image of
those big knockers all over the world.

For shame!

The Trib didn't even find out what Unlocking cost the
creationists. See what happens when you investigate the rest of the
story? Sure, you might say it's a stretch connecting creationism with
anti-breast fervor. And it might have been, except - it is the same
guy, Mark Burton, doing both of these activities. The Culture Wars
are on, people!

Darwin in school, breasts in public art -- nothing is
safe.

Georgia Stickers Must
GO!

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) reported on May
5th that "When Judge Clarence Cooper ruled that the evolution
disclaimers in the Cobb County School District's textbooks were
unconstitutional, he also ordered the stickers to be removed. Because
of the time needed, he subsequently allowed the removal to be
scheduled for the summer of 2005. Nevertheless, the Cobb County
School District asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay
the order, pending its decision on the district's appeal of Selman.
On May 3, 2005, a three-judge panel denied the Cobb County School
District's request. Speaking to the Marietta Daily Journal, Michael
Manely, who, along with the ACLU, represented the plaintiffs at
trial, commented, "It's the first serious nail in the coffin from the
Court of Appeals. They are expressing their preliminary thoughts on
the subject. This is like a preview of what is certain to come. It
tells the board that this corpse is beginning to smell really
bad."...

For background on the anti-science hearings this week, in what is
being dubbed "Scopes II" by many pundits, check out this
excellent in-depth report by Tony Ortega, "Your OFFICIAL program to
the Scopes II Kansas Monkey Trial."

See also ongoing reports at the Panda's Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org/),
and check back often on reports from the front lines by correspondent
Pat Hayes of Red State Rabble (http://www.redstaterabble.blogspot.com/).
Today's "Rabble" has an interesting
bombshell: "As intelligent design witness after witness
admitted under questioning that they have not read the majority draft
of the science standards, board member Kathy Martin jumped in to save
the day. 'I've not read it word for word myself,' Martin said as the
air went out of the room. ..." Wow.

Big Changes at the
Labs...

Los Alamos National Labs head Peter Nanos stepped down on May 6th,
2005. Some says it was because of the Bloggers, writing about
complaints at the lab after security-related work stoppages. One
particularly vivid blog image appears here:

Nanos is the second major Lab director to step down in New Mexico
recently. On April 11th, Sandia Labs president C. Paul Robinson
stepped down as head of Sandia National Laboratories, in order to
chair Lockheed Martin's bid to manage Los Alamos. The Journal's Fleck
has this analogy: "For 'Lockheed Martin,' substitute 'New
York Yankees.' For 'C. Paul Robinson,' substitute 'Randy Johnson.'
Lockheed Martin was already a formidable bidder. Robinson carries
with him a sterling reputation from his tenure at Sandia, which has
not been marred by the sort of headline-generating scandals that have
plagued Los Alamos. ..."

The Baptists4Ethics.com site announced on April 15th, that "A
man once known for barnstorming the country trying to sell
dealerships for a machine he claimed would make free electricity from
air is now offering churches grants up to $50 million to help bring
'Christian values' to America. In an introductory video on a Web site
promoting 'The Kingdom Grant,' Dennis Lee claims to represent a
consortium of Christian businessmen planning to put $50 billion a
year back into communities in order to 're-instill Christian values
in the United States.' He urges pastors to apply for awards of $5
million for every 100 members in their congregation. That means a
church with 500 members would receive $25 million a year.
..."

Nature reports on Apr. 21 that "Almost all the glaciers that
flow into the sea off the Antarctic Peninsula are retreating. The
discovery comes from an analysis spanning more than half a century of
aerial photographs and satellite images. ..."

And John Fleck blogs on the new report by James Hansen and his
Goddard Institute for Space Studies colleagues. Fleck says "Hansen
and his colleagues have clearly found another fingerprint that
matches what is being detected around the world with what the climate
models predict we should be seeing if greenhouse gases are driving
our climate change. But do we keep having to have this argument? Far
more important, it seems to be, is the way the study's contributions
to the 'what happens next' part. ..."

This Panda's Thumb blog entry takes a new look at the old
question, featuring creationist pastor and parent Ray Mummert's pithy
assessment: We`ve been attacked by the intelligent,
educated segment of the culture...

Nature reports on April 27th that "At first, it sounds like the
biggest science story of the century: scientists have invented a
desktop fusion machine. If nuclear fusion can be made to happen at
room temperatures and pressures in an average lab, then one might
think the world's energy crisis is over. But the inventors of the
device stress that their gadget cannot generate power at all, because
it does not support a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction.
Instead, they say, it has a whole host of other applications, from
treating cancer to powering spacecraft. ..."

Bob Park at the American Physical Society had this to
say: "Newspapers around the country reported the amazing
result that a UCLA team had demonstrated fusion of deuterium to form
helium in a table-top device. They were, of course, scooped  by
Ernest Rutherford, 71 years ago. Fusion is easy. A self-sustaining
reaction is not. ..."

"Mark Boslough double-fooled
Snopes.com and probably fooled himself as well..."

Folks, we're not making this stuff up. Following the success of
our world-famous prank, www.nmsr.org/alabama.htm,
now someone is claiming "Snopes.com, supposedly able to expose
urban legends, has been double-fooled by this little piece. ...(This
wonderful bit of creative writing began circulating on the Internet
in April 1998. Written by Mark Boslough ) ... Snopes goes on to say
that no law was passed to redefine pi to 3.0, and that Mark
Bosloughs writing is a spoof. But Mark Boslough has fooled
Snopes.com. The real deception requires a bit of knowledge of
mathematics and also a bit of knowledge of Scripture. Snopes.com
lacked the ability, for whatever reason, to expose the real
deception, so we will take care of that here. ..."

Will the new pope of the Catholic Church reverse the previous
pope's stand regarding evolution? ID's Bill Dembski thinks
so... "Unlike John Paul II, who seemed to sign off on conventional
evolutionary theory save for the divine infusion of souls at the
origin of humanity, we can expect Benedict XVI to single out
intelligent design for special favors. Indeed, I wouldnt be
surprised to see Michael Behe invited to an audience with the new
pope. ..."

Not so fast - consider these statements from the former Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger on the Book of Genesis: "It is, rather, the
echo of God's history with His people. ... The Bible is not a
natural-science textbook, nor does it intend to be such."

My prediction: If Benedict XVI is as conservative as
they say, don't look for him to rush out tomorrow to overturn John
Paul II's pronouncements on evolution. Or, for that matter, St.
Augustine's on scripture versus science.

Russian Astrologist to
NASA: KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF THAT COMET!
...

Moscow News reported on April 19th that "...a Deep Impact
mission is underway, with a NASA spacecraft scheduled to collide with
the Tempel-1 comet on July 4, perhaps blasting it to smithereens.
Thats right, its Independence Day. Now, the last thing
NASA expected was a lawsuit from Russia. But Russian astrologist
Marina Bai gave it a try, and, according to her lawyer Alexander
Molokhov, it looks like she may just pull it off. In a lawsuit she
filed last month with the Presnensky district court in Moscow, Bai is
demanding that NASA call off its $311 million operation, with the
spacecraft already in its cruise phase. ... 'The actions of NASA
infringe upon my system of spiritual and life values, in particular
on the values of every element of creation, upon the unacceptability
of barbarically interfering with the natural life of the universe,
and the violation of the natural balance of the Universe,' Bai said
in her claim. ..."

The Lawrence (KS) Journal-World reported on April 20th that
"... it was decided that proponents of intelligent design -- an
idea that the world was started by a supernatural power -- will
provide testimony from May 5 through May 7. And in a surprise move,
it appears that supporters of evolution will present their side May
12 through May 14. Scientists in Kansas and across the nation had
previously said they would boycott the hearings on science standards
because they felt that conservative State Board of Education members
were using the hearings to criticize evolution and introduce religion
in science classes. But on Tuesday, the majority of scientists
serving on a committee that composed the pro-evolution science
standards for Kansas students indicated they were ready to challenge
the conservatives. Attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, representing the
majority on the science standards committee, blasted the hearings
process, criticized the use of taxpayer funds to bring in
anti-evolution witnesses, and said he would probably call some
witnesses of his own. ...While Calvert's list of 24 [pro-ID]
witnesses is already public, Irigonegaray said he may use May 12-14
to present the pro-evolution side, but he would not reveal whom he
may call as witnesses. This angered [pro-creationism board
members] Morris and Martin. Morris said Irigonegaray should
cooperate so that board members could have a 'definite agenda that we
could be working on and praying over.' Irigonegaray said he couldn't
be compelled to produce a witness list 'so that a prayer service
could occur.'..."

The Ohio Free Times reports on April 21st that "In March 2004,
the Ohio Board of Education voted 13-5 to approve a lesson plan for
10th-grade science classes called 'Critical Analysis of Evolution.'
Supporters said the intent was to make students aware of possible
flaws in the theory of evolution. Opponents argued, however, that
there are no significant, scientifically sound challenges to
evolution, and that the real intent was to introduce a form of
creationism into public schools. ... In January 2005, AU
[Americans United] filed another request [to review the
new lesson plans] after receiving some materials ... Four months
later  and a full year after the original request  that
still hasn't happened. ... Lynn Elfner, CEO of the Ohio Academy of
Science, finds himself in a similar situation. His requests to see
drafts of plans that will be used to train 7th-to-10th-grade science
teachers at Miami University this summer have been denied. He hasn't
been told why, but he increasingly suspects it has something to do
with intelligent design. 'There should be no reason to hesitate to
share drafts,' he says. 'We suspect something in it stinks.'
..."

An April 20th Panda's Thumb post by Dr. Gary Hurd sheds some much
needed light on the recent announcement of the discovery of
"soft" fossilized dinosaur tissues. Hurd begins "On 24 March
2005, a team of paleontologists lead by Mary Higby Schweitzer
published their discovery of dinosaur soft tissues recovered from the
cortical bone of a T. rex femur. ..." He explains the
basic findings, and also discusses the media hype ("Send in the
Clones ... The related press reports have created the impression that
there are large features with the characteristics of fresh tissue.
This is not true. The structures examined are a few millimeters
across at most. The last, and rather irritating aspect of this
research is not from the Science article, or the supporting material,
but from the press interviews given by Schweitzer which repeatedly
hint at the recovery of DNA, and even of cloning. ..."). Hurd
dissects the expected creationist over-reaction as well ("'IMHO,
it would take more faith to believe these soft tissues are 70 million
years old than it would take to believe Almighty God brought the
universe into existence in 6 days. The invention of man is clever in
his own mind and foolishness to God.'..."), and points out
professional creationists' foot-swallowing on the matter ("This
graph [from the on-line Science article] is David
Mentons nightmare; strong indication that there is molecular
evidence that birds evolved from the dinosaurs. ...").

If you're at all curious about this unusual find, or how it plays
into the creation-evolution wars, give Hurd's essay a read!

AP News My Way reports on April 20th that "Dr. Sue
Savage-Rumbaugh sounds like a proud mother when she speaks about her
brood of bonobos, eight ultra-intelligent apes that will take part in
unique language research meant to shed light on their nature and
maybe our own. ...The bonobos will be able to cook in their own
kitchen, tap vending machines for snacks, go for walks in the woods
and communicate with researchers through computer touchscreens. The
decor in their 18-room home includes an indoor waterfall and climbing
areas 30 feet high. The longevity of the project is unlike any other.
The animals, which have a life span of up to about 50 years, will be
allowed to mate and have families - and develop cultures that will be
studied for generations to come, Savage-Rumbaugh said. ..."

"the level of the oceans varied more dramatically during
between ice ages than was previously thought, implying that the
global climate during these intervals was not as stable as most
scientists think. ..."

"...approximately 250 million years ago. During the 'Great
Dying,' more than 90% of creatures in the ocean, and 75% of life on
land went extinct. What caused the extinction is still up for debate,
but a researcher from the University of Washington thinks that low
levels of oxygen in the atmosphere sure didn't help. Oxygen went down
to 12% (currently it's 21%), and this made standing at sea level the
same as being atop a 5,300 metre mountain (17,000 feet). ..."

"Purdue University researchers found the key to a kernel's
explosive success lies in the composition of its hull. Unpopped
kernels, it turns out, have leaky hulls that prevent the moisture
pressure buildup needed for them to pop and lack the optimal hull
structure that allows most kernels to explode. ..."

Yahoo Asia reported on April 12th that "Yale University
researchers say their study that used lasers to create
remote-controlled fruit flies could lead to a better understanding of
overeating and violence in humans. Using the lasers to stimulate
specific brain cells, researchers say they were able to make the
flies jump, walk, flap their wings and fly. Even headless flies took
flight when researchers stimulated the correct neurons, according to
the study, published in the April 7 issue of the journal Cell.
..."

A perceptive op-ed by Randy Scholfield in the April 12th
Wichita Eagle (Kansas) notes that "... In recent weeks, the
Kansas Department of Education staff has failed to find any
scientists in Kansas or the nation who want to legitimize the
upcoming May hearings with their presence. ... Predictably, BOE
chairman Steve Abrams, one of three creationists who would preside
over the hearings, suggested that the refusal meant the scientific
community was incapable of defending evolution. 'It's almost like
they're saying, 'We can't defend what's put out there, so we're not
going to participate,' Mr. Abrams said. Well, no. It's almost like
they're saying, 'This rigged forum, with a predetermined outcome, has
no credibility whatsoever in the scientific community. So what's the
point?' Baiting scientists won't get them to appear. Because as they
rightly perceive, the hearings are a political effort to legitimize
ID by parading a small number of 'experts' before the public. ...
What scientists see is a monkey trial. What Kansans should see is a
waste of time and money and, once again, a train wreck for the
state's image. ..."

Read why the AAAS "respectfully declined" the invitation
in a letter from AAAS CEO Alan Leshner, in which he states
" ... it will most likely serve to confuse the public about the
nature of the scientific enterprise."

John Fleck writes in the May 13th Albuquerque Journal that
"[Los Alamos] Physicist Michael Martin Nieto has a problem
that won't go away. For the better part of a decade, Nieto and a
loose-knit group of colleagues have been poring over data from NASA's
old Pioneer interplanetary spacecraft, trying to answer a nagging
question. What's holding the spacecraft back? The "Pioneer anomaly"
is a tale of scientific persistence that is either a trip into the
heart of exciting new physics or a monumental wild goose chase. NASA
and the European Space Agency have begun talking in recent months
about new space missions to try to figure out which. ..."

Jeff Jones of the Albuquerque Journal writes on April 9th that
"For New Mexico Powerball players, first the good news: Starting
this summer, you'll likely be seeing many more of those gaudy
super-rich jackpots of $100 million or more splashed up on the
billboards. Now the bad news: Since the only way the jackpots get
that big is by people hitting the jackpot less frequently, your odds
of actually winning the big one will be even more dismal to the
tune of about 146.1 million to 1. 'Some mathematicians say the
lottery is the state's tax on the mathematically slow,' said Dave
Thomas, president of New Mexicans for Science and Reason, who
crunched some numbers on the new lottery scheme. ...[New Mexico
Lottery chief executive officer Tom] Shaheen offered this truism
echoed by Powerball optimists everywhere: 'Sometimes it runs to $300
million, and sometimes it runs to $25 million. But in the end,
somebody's gonna win.' He added, 'I've met a lot of people who have
won millions of dollars. And I've yet to meet anybody who's been
struck by lightning.' Thomas countered: 'My neighbor's been struck by
lightning.' ..."

The Santa Fe New Mexican (via AP) reported on April 14th that
"Entomologists Quentin Wheeler and Kelly B. Miller, who recently
had the task of naming 65 newly discovered species of slime-mold
beetles, named three species after the president, vice president and
defense secretary. The monikers: Agathidium bushi Miller and Wheeler,
Agathidium cheneyi Miller and Wheeler, and Agathidium rumsfeldi
Miller and Wheeler.... Naming the beetles after Bush, Cheney and
Rumsfeld was intended to pay homage to them, said Wheeler, who taught
at Cornell University for 24 years and now is with the Natural
History Museum in London. ..."

CNN reports on April 14th that "In a victory for
pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a bunch of
computer-generated gibberish masquerading as an academic paper has
been accepted at a scientific conference. Jeremy Stribling said
Thursday that he and two fellow MIT graduate students questioned the
standards of some academic conferences, so they wrote a computer
program to generate research papers complete with "context-free
grammar," charts and diagrams. The trio submitted two of the randomly
assembled papers to the World Multi-Conference on Systemics,
Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI), scheduled to be held July 10-13
in Orlando, Florida. To their surprise, one of the papers -- 'Rooter:
A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and
Redundancy' -- was accepted for presentation. ..."

ABC News reports on April 4th "Who knew that characters
like Shrek and Gollum would share beauty secrets with leading
skin-care scientists? In fact, the same insight that has allowed
animators to make digitally generated characters more lifelike on
screen is now the interest of researchers aiming to create products
that would help customers regain youthful, glowing skin. The key lies
in the way light enters and then scatters just below the skin's
surface. ..."

ABC News rported on April 4th that "Different countries
may follow different sports  but even so, those sports can fill
similar niches, said Michael Mandelbaum, author of 'The Meaning of
Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football, and Basketball and
What They See When They Do.' For instance, British traditions embrace
the ball-and-bat game of cricket rather than baseball, the contact
sport of rugby (in two different pro versions) rather than football
and the ball-and-goal game of soccer rather than basketball.
...Sports scholars note that individual sports and racing exhibitions
mainly predominated into the 19th century when team sports started to
become organized. Differing sports cultures then evolved, often under
the influence of the British Empire or American power. ..."

The Moscow News reported on March 25th that "What were thought
to be the remains of Noahs Arc on Mount Ararat in modern-day
Turkey were discovered to be natural formations by a group of Russian
scientists. Scientists from the Kosmopoisk Scientific Research Center
announced Friday at a press conference that there were no remains of
Noahs Ark on the mountain, the Interfax news agency reported.
'Everything that we saw, all the samples that we gathered testify to
the fact that there is no Noahs Arc on Ararats western
slope,' the news agency quoted Vadim Chernobrov, the centers
director, as saying. 'At least after the volcanic eruption of 1840
that destroyed everything, including petrified wood, there can be no
talk of the remains of a ship being preserved.' ...

LiveScience.com reported on April 7th that
"Scientist[s] said this week they had drilled into the
lower section of Earth's crust for the first time and were poised to
break through to the mantle in coming years. The Integrated Ocean
Drilling Program (IODP) seeks the elusive 'Moho,' a boundary formally
known as the Mohorovicic discontinuity. It marks the division between
Earth's brittle outer crust and the hotter, softer mantle.
..."

PittsburghLive.com reports on April 8th that "Teresa Heinz has
chimed in on the debate over whether evolution should be taught in
high schools to explain life on Earth, as opposed to religious
concepts such as creationism. She came down on the side of teaching
evolution, saying that in no way conflicts with her personal
religious faith. 'I believe God did create us, and that evolution was
his tool. I see no contradiction at all between science and religion
-- none,' she said during a speech Thursday night at an event in
Pittsburgh. 'The purpose of science is to teach science and not
religion,' she added. ...Heinz told about 300 participants at the
conference that just as scientists are attacked when they offer
evidence of global climate changes, teachers and school board members
are being intimidated for teaching evolution. 'This abandonment of
science is happening...without any fanfare at all,' she said.
..."

Rick Couch of the Demopolis Times (Alabama) reports on April
7th that "Our very own Alabama the beautiful was the site of
another great April Fools prank when it was announced Alabama had
changed the value of Pi. The April 1998 issue of New Mexicans for
Science and Reason newsletter was released with an article claiming
the Alabama legislature had voted to change the value of the
mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0.
The article made its way onto the Internet and around the world. The
Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people
protesting the legislation. A physicist named Mark Boslough wrote the
actual
article. ..."

The mysterious numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 were
the basis of ABC's "Lost"
episode of March 2, 2005. When huge hippie Hurley decides to use
these numbers (provided by a friend in a mental institution) in the
lottery, he wins millions, only to find himself "cursed" with death
and injury in his family, getting busted, and - oh yeah - being in a
plane crash and getting marooned. During the episode, it was revealed
these same numbers also happened to have lured people to the unlucky
island years before. Death, injury, legal problems, plane crashes -
who wants a piece of that action? Apparently, hundreds of
people do! On March 5th, Christine Rook of the Lansing State Journal
(Michigan) wrote "So what did at least 215 people do after the
show? They played the numbers for a shot at Friday's $10 million Mega
Millions jackpot, lottery officials said. They lost. (Phew.)
..."

I wondered if New Mexicans were also eager to take a chance
on the "cursed" numbers, and inquired with the New Mexico
lottery as to how many Powerball tickets were purchased with these
numbers after the March 2nd "Lost" showing. Lance Ross of the
NM Lottery Authority was kind enough to honor my unusual
request, even though normally only winning numbers are announced, not
losing entries. Lance wrote "There were 158 Powerball tickets in
New Mexico that night [Saturday March 6th] that matched the
numbers on the previous episode of 'Lost.' Virtually all were
player-picked, although there is the possibility that some may have
been randomly-generated 'quick picks.' Additionally, there is no way
to know if one person may have played the same number more than once.
These represented tickets purchased Thursday through Saturday, March
3-5. ..."

As in Michigan, the "cursed" numbers did poorly in practice.
Of the nine Powerball
drawings in all of March, only three of the special numbers were
actually drawn: 8 (March 2nd), 23 (March 9th, 12th and
23rd) and 42 (March 30th). The numbers 4, 15 and 16 weren't
drawn at all.

Perhaps the real "curse" is simply that these numbers are no
more special than any others.

Hobbit Fossils
Damaged...

USA Today reported on March 21st that "In what is being
called a true case of scientific skullduggery, the remains of the
newly discovered human species have suffered irreparable damage since
entering the care of paleontologists. The damage to the bones of this
diminutive being  named Homo floresiensis and nicknamed hobbit
by scientists  is so extensive that it will limit scholarly
research on the species, say members of the Indonesian Center for
Archaeology-based discovery team. Considered the most important
discovery in human origins in five decades, the remains are marred by
broken jaws and smashed bones. ... In November, the research took a
bizarre turn into the politics of paleontology. Teuku Jacob of Gadjah
Mada University, an Indonesian scientist unaffiliated with the
discovery team, took the partly fossilized bones to his lab in
Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 275 miles away from their repository in
Jakarta. What followed was a standoff that set an older generation of
Indonesian and Australian paleontologists against younger scientists.
Jacob, 75, is considered Indonesia's most prominent paleontologist, a
role with added status in a country that reveres age and seniority.
On the other side is the team of scientists that is based at the
Indonesian Center for Archaeology but whose work is funded by the
Australian Research Council. Aside from four leg bones that remain in
Jacob's custody, the fossils were returned on Feb. 23. The team
charges the remains were severely damaged by rubber molds made at
Jacob's lab..."

Nature reported on March 23rd that "A strain of genetically
modified corn that does not have regulatory approval has been
distributed by accident over the past four years, Nature has learned.
Syngenta, one of the world's largest agricultural biotechnology
companies, revealed the mistake to US regulators at the end of last
year. Although the crop is believed to be safe, the fact that it was
sold for years by accident raises serious questions about how
carefully biotechnology firms are controlling their activities,
critics say. ..."

ABC News said on March 28th that "A children's museum near
Albany is debuting something new on its big-domed screen they call a
'Molecularium' show. The 20-minute digital animation piece
reinterprets the traditional planetarium experience for kids as
likely to stick their nose in a Game Boy as a book. The subject isn't
outer space this time, but atomic space. The movie tells the story of
an oxygen atom, Oxy, and her nano pals exploring protons and
electrons a sort of science meets Shrek story for the early grades.
..."

Mutations in a single gene found responsible for major changes in
fish scales and plates: the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announces
on March 24th that "In a stunning example of evolution at work,
scientists have now found that changes in a single gene can produce
major changes in the skeletal armor of fish living in the wild.
..."

Nature reports on March 31st that "Black holes are staples of
science fiction and many think astronomers have observed them
indirectly. But according to a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in California, these awesome breaches in
space-time do not and indeed cannot exist. ... George Chapline thinks
that the collapse of the massive stars, which was long believed to
generate black holes, actually leads to the formation of stars that
contain dark energy. "It's a near certainty that black holes don't
exist," he claims. ..."

The Guardian (UK) reports on March 30th "A report backed
by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries - some of them world leaders in
their fields - today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural
machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human
pressure. ..."

The Seattle Times did a report on Seattle's own Discovery
Institute. Included are these comments: "The School Board in
Dover, Pa., however, got it wrong, [DI's Stephen] Meyer said,
when it required instruction in intelligent design. (The matter is
now in court.) Intelligent design isn't established enough yet for
that, Meyer says. He also criticizes the Georgia school board that
put stickers on biology textbooks with a surgeon-general-like warning
that evolution is 'a theory not a fact.' The stickers were a 'dumb
idea,' he says bluntly. (A Georgia court ruled they were illegal, and
the case is under appeal.) ..."

MSNBC analyst (and former FBI Profiler) Clint Van Zandt has a
couple of columns on so-called "psychic detectives" at the
MSNBC site. His conclusion? "Whether they profess to see
dead people or simply rely on a claimed sixth sense that the vast
majority of us do not possess, psychics' track record hovers around
mere chance rather than statistical certainty. I'd dance with the
devil or talk to anyone who had information that could possibly save
the life of a missing child, but until psychics establish the track
record of multiple successes like those of criminal analysts, I
wouldn't bet the farm on their ability to name the next Pope, or tell
us who really shot JR or JFK. ..."

The Toledo Blade reports on March 31st that "An old tradition
that popular theory dates back hundreds of years, April Fool's is
evidence that, for at least one day a year, we don't have to take
ourselves too seriously. And thanks to modern technology, it's easier
than ever. 'I think in the past 15 years, there's kind of been a
resurgence in April Fool's Day, in large measure because of the
Internet' where hoaxes can spread like wildfire, said Alex Boese, a
sort of professor of pranks who authored the book The Museum of
Hoaxes (Plume, 2002). Topping his list was a 1957 broadcast by a
respected British news program announcing that due to a mild winter
and the near elimination of the spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were
enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It even showed footage of Swiss
peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. ... Others
that made his top 10 include Burger King announcing the introduction
of a "Left-Handed Whopper" in 1998 and reports that same year in the
New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter that the Alabama state
legislature was changing the value of the mathematical constant pi
from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. 'The ones that I think
are brilliant are the ones that when you first hear them are
believable,' Mr. Boese said. 'It's that trick of making it just
believable enough but completely ridiculous in hindsight.'
..."

The Washington Post/Newsday reported on March 25th that
"Paleontologists have recovered what appear to be soft tissues
from the thighbone of a 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex,
potentially enabling dinosaur research to make a leap into the study
of the animals' actual physiology and perhaps even their cell
biology, they said yesterday. Working with the remains of a T. rex
unearthed in northeast Montana's celebrated Hell Creek formation, the
research team removed minerals and fossilized deposits from the
thighbone, exposing blood vessels, bone cells and possibly intact
blood cells with nuclei. ... 'There's no 'Jurassic Park' scenario,'
said paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues, associate director of research
and collections at the National Museum of Natural History, but he and
others said the ability to isolate soft tissues nevertheless could
open up research horizons never before imagined. 'Ultimately if we
could establish chemical composition, we would have insights into all
kinds of things - diet, sexual maturity, whether the specimen is the
male or female,' Sues said. 'There's a lot of biological information
locked up in this material.' Team member John R. Horner, of Montana
State University's Museum of the Rockies, said the skeleton, of a
smallish T. rex about 18 years old and perhaps 40 feet tall, was
found beneath 1,000 cubic yards of sandstone at the base of the Hell
Creek formation on the Missouri River. ..."

This will be mis-interpreted by creationists. Will the findings
hold up at all? Check the Panda's
Thumb (http://www.pandasthumb.org/) for
a definitive analysis, probably on-line late in the afternoon on
Friday, March 25th.

IMAX Caught Up in Evolution
Censorship Scandal ...

Digital Home Canada reported on March 23rd that "Some IMAX
theatres in South Carolina and Texas are refusing to air the film
'Volcanoes of the Deep Sea,' because the film might offend people who
believe in creationism. A theatre director in Charleston was quoted
by CNN as saying that the IMAX theatre would not show the movie
because 'Many people here believe in creationism, not evolution.'
..."

However, complaints by the public have changed that policy, at
least in Fort Worth. Chris Vaughn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
reports on March 24th that "The film, which had been rejected in
part because it describes evolution, is to open 'before summer.' The
public erupted, and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History
moved, and quick. Volcanoes of the Deep Sea, an IMAX film rejected by
the museum in part because of complaints about evolution commentary,
will appear at the Cultural District institution after all.
..."

Nature reported on March 23rd that "In a discovery that has
flabbergasted geneticists, researchers have shown that plants can
overwrite the genetic code they inherit from their parents, and
revert to that of their grandparents. The finding challenges textbook
rules of inheritance, which state that children simply receive
combinations of the genes carried by their parents. The principle was
famously established by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in his
nineteenth-century studies on pea plants. ..."

But what does this discovery mean? Carl Zimmer has some
insights in a March 23rd column at The Loom: "Hoping to draw some
attention to his research, Mendel wrote to Karl von Nageli, a
prominent German botanist. Von Nageli was slow to respond, and when
he did, he suggested that Mendel try to get the same results from
hawkweed (Hieracium), the plant that von Nageli had studied for
decades. Mendel tried and failed. ... Hawkweed raises an important
question--one that is particularly important this morning. Does it
tells us that Mendel was wrong? Should teachers throw their Mendelian
charts into the fire? No. Mendel found a pattern that is widespread
in nature, but not a universal law. ... Today in Nature, scientists
found another exception to Mendelian heredity. They studied a plant
called Arabidopsis (also known as cress) much as Mendel did, tracing
genes from one generation to the next. ... in a new generation of
plants, some of the vanished genes reappeared. The authors think that
the vanished genes must have been hiding somewhere--perhaps encoded
as RNA--and were then tranformed back into DNA. Is cress the tip of a
genetic iceberg (to mix my metaphors hideously)? Only more
experiments will tell. If it is more than just a fluke, it may turn
out to play an important part in evolution, joining some other weird
mechanisms, such as "adaptive mutation," in which bacteria crank up
their mutation rate when they undergo stress. But hold onto those
Mendelian charts. These cress plants are wonderfully weird--but no
more wonderfully weird than hawkweed. ..."

New Scientist reports on "13 things that do not make
sense" in the March 19th issue. The placebo effect, the horizon
problem, Ultra-energetic cosmic rays, Belfast homeopathy results,
Dark matter and more enigmas are examined.

ID advocate Michael Behe often claims that Russell Doolittle
had made a mistake in analyzing the blood-clotting process, and that
Behe turned out to be right. Even though Behe continues to repeat
this claim, it's got problems. There's a detailed discussion on the
Panda's Thumb by Ian Musgrave, from March 22, 2005.

Wired News reports on synesthesia on March 4th: "Imagine every
time you hear the telephone ring, you taste a burrito with
jalapeño and guacamole. Believe it or not, some people --
synesthetes -- experience things just like that. For them it's like
being hooked up to a weird virtual-reality machine. The number 7 may
look green, or the color red might smell of soap. G-flat on the piano
might look like broken glass. ..."

The AP reports on March 15th that "New Mexico's
five-member congressional delegation on Monday endorsed a proposal to
use the government's nuclear waste dump near here for research that
needs a site deep underground. The National Science Foundation has
been looking for a place for the Deep Underground Science and
Engineering Research Laboratory, or DUSEL. ..."

Maggie Fox of Reuters reports on March 17th that "Even if
people stopped pumping out carbon dioxide and other pollutants
tomorrow, global warming would still get worse, two teams of
researchers reported on Thursday. Sea levels will rise more than they
have already risen, worsening the damage caused by extreme high tides
and storm surges, and droughts, heat waves and storms will become
more severe, the climate experts predicted. That makes immediate
action to slow global warming even more vital, the teams at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado report in the
journal Science. ..."

Carl Zimmer's "The Loom" column of March 18th notes that "You
may have heard last month's news about an aggressive form of HIV that
had public health officials in New York scared out of their
professional gourds. ... everyone did agree that the final judgment
would have to wait until the scientists started publishing their
research. Today the first data came out in the Lancet. One of the
figures jumped out at me, and I've reproduced it here. The scientists
drew the evolutionary tree of this new strain. ... This tree is a
road map for future research on this new strain. It will allow
scientists to pinpoint the evolutionary changes caused by natural
selection or other factors that made this strain so resistant to
anti-HIV drugs. ... So here we have evolutionary trees and natural
selection at the very core of a vitally important area of medical
research. Yet we are told again and again by op-ed columnists and
certain members of boards of education that evolution is nothing but
an evil religion and that creationism of one flavor or another is the
future of science. You'd expect then that Intelligent Design or some
other form of creationism would help reveal something new about this
HIV. But it has not. That should count for something. ..."

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports on March 16th that
"Using a wacky chain reaction of pulleys, levers, electrical
circuits and combustion, a group of Bonita High School students has
created a massive contraption that cuts the perfect slice of cheese.
With the help of kite string, duct tape, a couple dozen mousetraps
and other odds and ends, the fairy tale-themed machine starts with a
wolf cutout knocking over little pigs' houses and ends five dizzying
minutes later with an ax-wielding farmer's wife hacking into a hunk
of Pepper Jack. ..."

Scientific American reports on Feb. 24th that "Astronomers
announced Wednesday that they have discovered what is believed to be
the first dark galaxy ever detected, a starless mass of spinning
matter located some 50 million light-years away in the Virgo cluster
of galaxies. ..."

Related Story: New Scientist reports on March 11 that "The
corpses of three 'dead' galaxies - which to the surprise of
astronomers stopped forming stars long ago - have been identified by
the Spitzer Space Telescope during a survey of the distant, early
universe. The find bolsters a theory that colossal black holes can
starve galaxies of the gas needed to create new stars. ..."

Joihn Fleck writes in the March 8th Albuquerque Journal that
"It seems like such a simple question: What turns big rocks into
little ones? The answer has obsessed Les McFadden for much of the
past decade, ever since he awoke one night with an idea. Standing in
a field of boulders in the foothills above Albuquerque one recent
afternoon, McFadden pointed to a rock with a neat crack in it running
north to south then another, and another. McFadden's simple
answer the sun does it might seem inconsequential or even
obvious to a lay person unfamiliar with the scientific history of the
question. But, in fact, his answer overturns decades of scientific
conventional wisdom. ..."

The Albuquerque Journal's John Fleck remembered his last encounter
with Hans Bethe on the Journal's Science Blog: "I was
relatively new to the nuclear weapons beat here at the Journal when I
got a call in the summer of 1992 telling me that there would be a
surprise visitor at panel discussion in Los Alamos on nuclear weapons
policy. Bethe's name was whispered. It was a bit of theater, with
everyone in the room that evening at Fuller Lodge knowing that the
great man was due to put in an appearance. It was the 47th
anniversary of the Trinity Test, and the Fuller Lodge meeting room
was the same place where Bethe and the other Manhattan Project
scientists had gathered for their legendary seminars as the first
atomic bombs were taking shape. To see Bethe in that setting - modest
but emphatic, 'unpretentious,' as Broad put it - was electrifying.
..."

New Scientist reports on March 7th that "The fossilised
skeleton of a four million-year-old human ancestor able to walk on
two legs could provide clues as to how humans' upright walk evolved.
The remains, found in north-east Ethiopia, are the oldest yet
discovered of an upright hominid, scientists told a press conference
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Saturday. ..."

Israel21c reports on March 6th that "It's known as the ultimate
survivor. It grows wild in Israel, thriving in the harsh dry
conditions that would kill many other plants. And what do the cells
of this hardy survivor - a native Israeli Persian buttercup - look
like under a microscope? A Star of David. 'It really is symbolic,'
says Dr. Rina Kamenetsky, a researcher at Israel's Volcani Institute,
who made the surprising discovery while trying to understand the
survival mechanisms of this resilient bulb, known in Hebrew as nurit,
and in Latin as Ranunculus asiaticus. ..."

Ronald Bailey writes in the Feb. 9th Reason Online that
"Intelligent design theorists and their claims to scientific
legitimacy aside, the only reason the vast majority of people who
want intelligent design taught in high school want it is because they
believe it will undercut the corrosive effects of evolutionary
biology on the religious beliefs of their children. They don't know
and couldn't care less about the scientific details of the evolution
of blood cascadesthey just want Darwinism kept away from their
kids. However, the fact that Pope John Paul II doesn't have any
problem with evolutionary biology is a pretty good indication that
religious belief and biology can co-exist. ..."

Philip Ball of Nature reported on Feb. 28th that "The idea of a
cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been
confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But
electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one. Andrea
Alù and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia say that a 'plasmonic cover' could render objects
"nearly invisible to an observer". Their idea remains just a proposal
at this stage, but it doesn't obviously violate any laws of physics.
... The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see
objects because light bounces off them; if this scattering of light
could be prevented (and if the objects didn't absorb any light) they
would become invisible. Alù and Engheta's plasmonic screen
suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating
light. ..."

Carl Zimmer's "The Loom" column of March 3 discusses
measurements of the brain capacity of Homo floresiensis -
a.k.a. "Hobbits" - small hominids which lived on an Indonesian island
some18,000 years ago. Zimmer writes "As soon as the news broke of
the discovery, some researchers expressed grave doubts. They
suggested that H. floresiensis was actually just a group of human
pygmies. The fossils discovered on Flores include only a single
skull, and these skeptics suggested that its small size might be the
result of a genetic defect known as microcephaly. ... The Hobbit
skull was scanned in Jakarta at a 1-mm resolution, and the data was
then processed at Washington University's medical school. Falk and
her colleagues then analyzed the interior of the skull to calculate
the size and shape of the brain, and then produced a
three-dimensional model of it. ... The most straightforward results
are the ones that address the skeptical suggestions about a
small-brained human. The Hobbit brain doesn't look anything
like the brain of a microcephalic. Microcephalics have
smooth brains, for example; the Hobbit has a normal convoluted
surface. Microcephalic brains have a pointed top and a sloping
forehead; the Hobbit brain is rounded on top and unsloped in front.
Nor does the Hobbit brain seem to belong to Homo
sapiens. It is small (417 cc, which is less than a third
the size of an average human brain), and lacks the distinctive shape
of human brain. It is wider from ear to ear than it measures from the
front to the back of the head, for example. The brains of
human pygmies are indistinguishable from those of taller humans, both
in size and shape. Of all the brains that Falk and co.
compared to Homo floresiensis, Homo erectus came the closest--in
particular, Homo erectus skulls from Java and China. ..."

We reported last week on a case of fossil fraud in Germany. This
week, Jim Foley at the Panda's Thumb writes on Feb. 28th that

German scientist Reiner Protsch had committed a number of
scientific frauds. Protsch apparently could not even operate his
own carbon-dating equipment, and routinely made up dates for bones
that had been sent to him for dating, often giving recent
specimens dates that were much too old. Many webpages have
repeated the following quote about the significance of these
frauds:

"Chris Stringer, a Stone Age specialist and head of
human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: 'What
was considered a major piece of evidence showing that the
Neanderthals once lived in northern Europe has fallen by the
wayside. We are having to rewrite prehistory.' "

Stringer, however, says that he never said that:

"This is a made-up quote as I never placed great
weight on the significance of the Hahnofersand find in the
first place. It was never called a Neanderthal as far as I
know, but certain people saw 'mixed' features in its
morphology. Its removal is certainly not rewriting anything
I have ever said about the Neanderthals, let alone rewriting
prehistory!" (Chris Stringer, personal communication)

ABC News reports on March 3rd that "A strange world of
see-through shrimp, crabs and other life forms teems around a newly
explored field of thermal vents near the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean, scientists report. Towering white mineral chimneys mark the
field, named the Lost City, a sharp contrast to the better-known
black smoker vents that have been studied in recent years. The
discovery shows "how little we know about the ocean," lead researcher
Deborah S. Kelley of the University of Washington said. 'I have been
working on black smokers for about 20 years, and you sort of think
you have a good idea what going on,' she said in a telephone
interview. 'But the ocean is a big place and there are still
important opportunities for discovery.' ..."

Leading "Intelligent Design" theorist William Dembski
(www.nmsr.org/dembski.htm) isn't
faring well in the press this week. First, in response to news
articles about Dembski moving from Baylor to a Baptist college in
Kentucky, Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) reader Bill Holt
exclaimed in a letter to the editor on Feb. 27th, "Puleeze! With
all of the things we have to be embarrassed about, it was entirely
unnecessary for you to headline the coming of William Dembski to
Louisville. Your quote of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
president R. Albert Mohler Jr., without immediate qualification,
saying that Dembski is 'one of the most skilled philosophers of
science in this generation' was a brief affront to the truth.
Dembski is a scientist like Elmer Fudd is a
hunter. ..."

Well Said, Bill Holt! Numerous other writer also panned ID's
darling. No doubt the Discovery Institute will be called in to mop up
the mess.

The lads at www.antievolution.org have produced a wicked little
satire page showing Bill Dembski on the cover of the National
Enquirer, with the bold headline "Mathematician ready for prime
time - William Dembski Factors 59 - 'Astounding!' Say Colleagues -
'It was Right There All Along.' ..."

The satire is a reference to a passage in Dembski's book No
Free Lunch, in which he discusses a string of consecutive prime
numbers, like the sequence that alerted SETI researchers to
alien signals in the movie Contact. Dembski's string of consecutive
prime is represented by binary digits. Dembski lists the primes and
corresponding bits in his book, and then proceeds to make probability
statements about the 1000 or so binary digits involved. As explained
by Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit in their paper "Information
Theory, Evolutionary Computation, and Dembski's 'Complex Specifed
Information'," it so happens that "A careful inspection of the
string presented on pp. 143-144 of No Free Lunch reveals that
it is indeed of length 1000, but omits the unary
representation of the prime 59. ..."

As a professional mathematician myself, I can assure the
general reader that this kind of mistake is about as embarrassing as
they get!

Posted February 25th, 2005

German Anthropologist
"Retired" for Fraud...

The Guardian (UK) reports on Feb. 19th that "...the
professor's [Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten] 30-year-old
academic career has now ended in disgrace after the revelation that
he systematically falsified the dates on this [a supposedly
36,000-year old skull] and numerous other 'stone age' relics.
Yesterday his university in Frankfurt announced the professor had
been forced to retire because of numerous 'falsehoods and
manipulations.' ... 'Anthropology is going to have to completely
revise its picture of modern man between 40,000 and 10,000 years
ago,' said Thomas Terberger, the archaeologist who discovered the
hoax. 'Prof Protsch's work appeared to prove that anatomically modern
humans and Neanderthals had co-existed, and perhaps even had children
together. This now appears to be rubbish.' ..."

Creationist Reaction: "Of course, the only way to know
about the past with certainty is to consult a history book. The Bible
is such a history book and gives us the true account of origins. It
never changes because God got it right the first time. ..."

New Scientist reports on Feb. 19th that "A small Chinese
dinosaur with large feathers on its leg has stunned the world of
palaeontology. The fossilised leg bones of Pedopenna daohugouensis
reveal it to be as bird-like as archaeopteryx, till now the oldest
known bird. But its discoverers think that Pedopenna may be even
older. ..."

Carl Zimmer's "The Loom" column notes on Feb. 24th that
"The Sydney Morning Herald reports today that the bones of Homo
floresiensis, aka the Hobbits, have at last been returned to the team
that originally discovered them. The team, made up of Indonesian and
Australian scientists, discovered the bones on the Indonesian island
of Flores. ..."

Veteran NM commentator Larry Calloway comments on "Science
Held Back by Politics" in the Feb. 20th Northern (Santa
Fe) edition of the Albuquerque Journal. Included in Calloway's
piece are some barbed comments about the "Intelligent
Design" column recently published by Michael Behe in the New
York Times: "I'm waiting for a Times opinion piece arguing
that the sun goes around the earth because of common sense
observation and the latest artfully worded public opinion
poll...."

A key plank in the "Intelligent Design" creationist platform
is the assertion that one cannot believe in God and also accept
evolution. (See http://www.nmidnet.org/theistic_evo.html
for a typical example.)

Among the Christians stepping forward to dispute this assertion
this week:

In the Feb. 23rd issue of the Lacrosse Tribune (WI), Rev. Kent A.
Meyer of Eitzen, Minn. writes "After reading many letters on
creationism vs. evolution, I would be more sympathetic to creationist
arguments if they didn't keep implying that they are the only 'real'
Christians and that Christians who accept evolution as a scientific
theory have compromised their faith. ..."

And Patrick Chisholm writes in the Feb. 23rd Christian Science
Monitor that "... Suppressing the teaching of evolution or
presenting it as a controversial 'theory' would be a huge step
backward in education. Save creationism for Sunday school.
..."

The creation/evolution struggle is not between religion and
atheism, as creationists would have us believe. It is between a few
specific religious sects on the one hand, and everyone else
(religious or otherwise) on the other.

ABC does UFO's ...
Complaints Abound while Ratings Plummet

Peter Jennings of ABC News hosted a 2-hour special, "The UFO
Phenomenon -- Seeing Is Believing," on Feb. 24th. I thought
the show was much more balanced and informative than the cheezy
promo's had led me to believe.

ABC got in some zingers on Roswell, New Mexico's own
UFO Mecca. NM's own Karl Pflock was interviewed. "Roswell
has become an article of faith, Pflock said. 'I don't think the
hardcore believers will ever give up on Roswell.' ..."

Support for UFOlogy was also on hand: "... Michio Kaku, one of
the leading theoretical physicists in the world, says many scientists
are too quick to dismiss the idea of other civilizations visiting
Earth. ...'When you look at this handful of [UFO] cases that
cannot be easily dismissed, this is worthy of scientific
investigation,' he said. 'Maybe there's nothing there. However, on
that off chance that there is something there, that could literally
change the course of human history. So I say let this investigation
begin.' ... "

But some skeptics were also displeased with the program. Bob
Park's What's New column for Feb. 25th notes "Yawn! ABC advertised
it as 'a fresh look at the UFO phenomenon,' but there was Stanton
Friedman, author of Crash at Corona and a major creator of the
highly-profitable Roswell myth. ... It ended with 'one of the
worlds leading physicists,' who looked a lot like Michio Kaku,
saying 'You simply cannot dismiss the possibility that some of these
objects are from a civilization millions of years ahead of us in
technology.' Sigh. ..."

The Final Score: ABC's UFO show is far better than the
usual dreck shown on the Sci Fi, History, or Learning Channels, but
not up to the quality of Nova or Nature.

As for ratings, ABC's show was clobbered by CBS's
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. So much for Sweeps!

Posted February 18th, 2005

35,000 Years added to
duration of Homo Sapiens...

RedNova reported on Feb. 17th that "Two human skulls discovered
in Africa have been confirmed as the oldest known examples of our
species, scientists said yesterday. The remains, unearthed in Kibish,
Ethiopia, are estimated to be about 195,000 years old and come from
around the time that modern humans are thought to have emerged. The
fossils, called Omo I and Omo II, were uncovered in 1967, but experts
have previously disagreed over their ages. Yesterday's report,
published in the journal Nature, shows that the two fossils were the
same age and humankind's oldest relics, despite the fact that Omo I's
features were distinctly more 'modern' than those of its companion.
..."

The BBC reported on Feb. 17th that "The fossilised
skeleton of a rabbit-like creature that lived 55 million years ago
has been found in Mongolia, Science magazine reports. Gomphos elkema,
as it is known, is the oldest member of the rabbit family ever to be
found. Gomphos was surprisingly similar to modern rabbits - and
probably hopped around on its elongated hindlimbs. ... Prior to this
discovery, the oldest, most complete fossil lagomorphs (the family
which includes rabbits, pikas and hares) were about 35 million years
old. ..."

The Feb. 18th issue of "The Triangle Online" (the student
newspaper at Drexel University) has an article by Aaron Sakulich, in
which Sakulich writes "In the 1960s von Däniken wrote a book
called Chariot of the Gods that claimed most of what ancient people
worshiped were actually space people. So let me rephrase my thesis
sentence: The Nazca lines were not built by, or for, space aliens.
... Let's assume for the moment that the UFO people are right and
that Nazca was an ancient alien airport. It's got to be the worst
airport on the face of the earth. Why bother building nice, long,
smooth runways when you could make, say, an enormous monkey tail? I
can just see the alien pilot and co-pilot speaking: 'Sir, should I
just touch down at one end of the runway and slow to a stop at the
other end?' 'Negative co-pilot. Today, we'll be touching down on the
left wing of that enormous hummingbird, crossing into it's beak, and
coming to a rest near the left shoulder. This requires several turns
at sharp angles. Try not to be too rough though, the people in first
class complained last time.' ..."

Andrew Kantor writes in his Feb. 4th CyberSpeak column for
USA Today that "We need to teach our children how the
world works, not how we really wish it did  and not how some
scared, ignorant people try to trick us into thinking it works.
Humans and dinosaurs at the same time? Sheesh. ... So much of what we
take for granted today wouldn't exist if engineers and scientists
didn't understand science. If we still had an Aristotelian view of
the world  four elements: air, earth, fire, water  we'd
never accept chemistry. Without chemistry, materials science
disappears, and with it an untold number of better cars, safer
packaging, more-fuel-efficient airplanes and who knows what else. If
we didn't accept quantum mechanics, we never would have realized how
electron orbits worked, or how those electrons give off photons as
they 'drop' from one energy level to another. So we wouldn't have
lasers. No lasers, no CDs. No DVDs. No laser surgery. No fiber
optics. ... Lack of science education or bad science education
creates a longer-term ripple effect, which is why sometimes it's hard
to notice. It can take years for a bad curriculum to start to hurt
society, and even then you usually don't notice when something isn't
there. Who can tell how many of the kids who get bad science
educations would have made a difference? 'Johnny would have developed
a cure for Alzheimer's, but he never studied genetics because his
school wouldn't teach it.' We'll never know. ... science gets better.
That's why we can fit the entire Library of Congress on a few plastic
platters, and why my father can come home from open-heart surgery
after less than a week. Science learns. Science improves.
(Low-intelligence folks try to twist that, not surprisingly. They
say, 'Ha ha! Science has been wrong!' as opposed to 'Oh, science
corrects its mistakes.') ..."

The Feb. 16th claim on Space.com was quite surprising: "A
pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private
meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life
may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by
pockets of water. The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of
NASAs Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group
that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for
publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.
..."

However, the claims turned out to be quite exaggerated. On Feb.
18th, Space.com had to report that "In response to Space
News original article 'NASA Researchers Claim Evidence of
Present Life on Mars' posted Feb. 16 on SPACE.com and spacenews.com
and picked up by other Web outlets, NASA issued a statement calling
the reports incorrect. 'NASA does not have any observational data
from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by
the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly
infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the
strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns
extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on
Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific
journal asserting martian life.' ...

Michael Behe, in an op-ed published Feb. 7th in the New York
Times, wrote "...the contemporary argument for intelligent design
is based on physical evidence and a straightforward application of
logic. The argument for it consists of four linked claims.
..."

Ben Fulton writes in the Salt Lake City Weekly on Feb. 10th
"Just imagine that, for every question you presented to someone in
power, they answered with the words, 'We dont really know.
Its a mystery.' Now imagine if you or your child asked a
question about the origin of the human species in a science class,
only to have a learned instructor tell you, 'We dont really
know. Its a mystery.' Would anyone dare call that education?
..."

Most Honest Statement by an
Intelligent Design Advocate for the Week...

In an MSNBC report on Feb. 10th, we read that
'Intelligent design promotes a rational basis for belief in
God,' said John Calvert, managing director of the Kansas-based
advocacy group Intelligent Design Network Inc. ..."

MSNBC reports on Feb. 9th that "A team of international
scientists launched an ambitious project on Thursday to genetically
identify, or provide a barcode for, every plant and animal species on
the planet. By taking a snippet of DNA from all the known species on
Earth and linking them to photographs, descriptions and scientific
information, the researchers plan to build the largest database of
its kind. ..."

There was so much news on the creationism front that we're just
going to give you titles, links, and a soundbite or two.

Boston Globe, January 29, 2005, "Creationists at the gate"
: "EMBOLDENED BY the important role social conservatives
played in the reelection of George W. Bush, believers in the biblical
account of man's origins are redoubling their efforts to have it made
an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution in public schools.
According to the pro-Darwinism National Center for Science Education,
efforts are underway in 43 states to nibble away at the clear line
the Supreme Court laid down in 1987, when it banned Bible-based
creationism as an intrusion of religion into the classroom.
..."

Newsweek, Feb. 7th, "Doubting Darwin" : "...For
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science
Education, there's no mystery about what I.D. proponents believe:
"It's another way of saying God did it. It isn't a model of change;
it isn't a theory that makes testable claims...."

New York Times, Feb. 2nd, "Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S.
Classes" : "In districts around the country, even
when evolution is in the curriculum it may not be in the classroom,
according to researchers who follow the issue. Teaching guides and
textbooks may meet the approval of biologists, but superintendents or
principals discourage teachers from discussing it. Or teachers
themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests from fundamentalists in
their communities...."

The Conservative Voice, Feb. 2nd, "D. James Kennedy Sees 'Wall
of Evolution' Eventually Tumbling Down" : "It is
Kennedy's opinion that Christians who embrace evolution are
compromising their faith. He describes evolution as the most
destructive idea ever to enter the mind of man, and a concept that
has killed more people than all religions that ever existed.
'Communistic evolution, according to the Senate committee that
examined it, is responsible for 135 million deaths in peacetime,' he
said. ..."

Wilson County News, Feb. 2nd, "Christianity attacked by
ACLU" : "The cross was used by those who hated
Christianity, first to kill Jesus and then in an attempt to kill the
faith. Today, the symbol of that same cross is so feared in secular
society that their own personal terrorist has been sent
to rip it away from the followers of Christ. This terrorist has a
name, and it is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). ... The
ACLU filed suit against a Pittsburgh school district to ban the
reference of Adam and Eve in a biology class. In Pennsylvania, a suit
was filed to stop the teaching of 'Intelligent Design,' which points
out that both evolution and creationism remain theories. ..."

And while IDers and creationists say "It's Just a
Theory," real scientists are getting down to the nitty-gritty
details of Life As We Know It.

BBC News, Jan. 24th " Whale and hippo 'close
cousins'" : "A water-loving mammal that lived 50 to
60 million years ago was probably the "missing link" between whales
and hippos, according to a new analysis. ..."

Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 3rd, "Fossils of Early Walkers Fill
Evolution Gap" : John Fleck writes "Newly discovered
fossils from Ethiopia have filled in a gap in our genealogy with
4.5-million-year-old hominids who were among the first of our
ancestors to walk upright. ..."

AP News Myway, Feb. 2nd "Organisms Found in Deepest Part
of Ocean" : "Tiny single-celled organisms, many of
them previously unknown, have been discovered beneath nearly seven
miles of water in the deepest part of the ocean. A sample of sediment
collected from the Challenger Deep southwest of Guam in the Pacific
Ocean Islands yielded several hundred foraminifera, a type of
plankton that is usually abundant near the ocean surface.
..."

The New York Times reported on Feb. 4th that "Dr. Ernst Mayr,
the leading evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, died on
Thursday in Bedford, Mass. He was 100. Dr. Mayr's death, in a
retirement community where he had lived since 1997, was announced by
his family and Harvard, where he was a faculty member for many years.
He was known as an architect of the evolutionary or modern synthesis,
an intellectual watershed when modern evolutionary biology was born.
The synthesis, which has been described by Dr. Stephen Jay Gould of
Harvard as 'one of the half-dozen major scientific achievements in
our century,' revived Darwin's theories of evolution and reconciled
them with new findings in laboratory genetics and in field work on
animal populations and diversity. ..."

Joe Nickell of CSICOP writes "Longtime Shroud of Turin
devotee Ray Rogers, a retired research chemist, now admits there is
the equivalent of a watercolor paint on the alleged burial cloth of
Jesus. By tortuous logic and selective evidence, however, he uses the
coloration to claim the 'shroud' image was not the work of a medieval
artist (Rogers 2004, 2005). Rogers follows many other shroud
defenders in attempting to discredit the medieval date given by
radiocarbon testing (Nickell 1998, 150151). ..."

Nature reports on Jan. 26th "Could astronauts take a leaf out
of H. G. Wells's book The First Men in the Moon, and use spacecraft
propelled by antigravity devices? Some see the idea as science
fiction, but major space agencies take it seriously. In 2001, the
European Space Agency (ESA) commissioned two scientists to evaluate
schemes for gravity control. They have concluded that, even if such
control were possible, the benefits for lifting spacecraft out of the
Earth's gravitational field would probably not be worth the effort.
But scientists working on such propulsion schemes dispute the report.
..."

The Sunday, Jan. 23rd issue of the New York Times, in an editorial
titled "The Crafty Attacks on Evolution," comments that
"...If evolution is derided as 'only a theory,' intelligent design
needs to be recognized as 'not even a theory' or 'not yet a theory.'
It should not be taught or even described as a scientific alternative
to one of the crowning theories of modern science. That said, in
districts where evolution is a burning issue, there ought to be some
place in school where the religious and cultural criticisms of
evolution can be discussed, perhaps in a comparative religion class
or a history or current events course. But school boards need to
recognize that neither creationism nor intelligent design is an
alternative to Darwinism as a scientific explanation of the evolution
of life. ..."

The Jan. 31st, 2005 article by Michael D. Lemonick, Noah Isackson,
and Jeffrey Ressner notes "...A look at where the Discovery
Institute gets much of its money and at the religious beliefs of many
scientists who support I.D. makes it reasonable to suspect that
Scott's assertion is correct: intelligent design is just a smoke
screen for those who think evolution is somehow ungodly. And that
appalls the many scientists and science teachers who believe in
evolution and also believe in God. ..."

The NY Times reported on Jan. 27th, 2005 that "The Shroud
of Turin is much older than the medieval date that modern science has
affixed to it and could be old enough to have been the burial
wrapping of Jesus, a new analysis concludes. Since 1988, most
scientists have confidently concluded that it was the work of a
medieval artist, because carbon dating had placed the production of
the fabric between 1260 and 1390. In an article this month in the
journal Thermochimica Acta, Dr. Raymond N. Rogers, a chemist retired
from Los Alamos National Laboratory, said the carbon dating test was
valid but that the piece tested was about the size of a postage stamp
and came from a portion that had been patched. 'We're darned sure
that part of the cloth was not original Shroud of Turin cloth,' he
said, adding that threads from the main part of the shroud were pure
linen, which is spun from flax. ..."

Film critic Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times writes on Jan.
25th, 2005 "And now, one Johnny Carson anecdote I didn't see
anywhere. In the year 2000, Carson made more than $1 million in
charitable donations, including $100,000 to the James
Randi Education Foundation of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. James
Randi is better known as the Amazing Randi. He's the professional
debunker (and occasional 'Tonight Show' guest) who has a standing
offer of $1 million to anyone who can prove the occurrence of a
paranormal, supernatural or occult event. Apparently, Carson had such
little tolerance for hucksterism that he sent Randi a six-figure
check just a couple of years ago. Excellent. ..."

A group which promotes various "Free Energy" schemes,
and which calls itself PureEnergySystems.com, writes on Jan. 25th, in
a piece called "Indonesian Tsunami Probably Tripped by Exxon-Mobil
Works," that "One cubic mile of natural gas extracted every
four years at epicenter Aceh facility presents a probable man-made
factor in 9.0 earthquake with accompanying tsunami that killed more
than 225,000 people. Think of a gigantic boulder sitting
precariously, nudged over the edge with a small lever. ..."

In a Jan. 24th article titled "Intelligent Math' next step in
evolution of US education," by Chatterton, the author notes that
"The American school at the centre of a debate over the teaching
of evolution has announced the next phase in its plan to make its
curriculum more palatable to Christians. Starting from next week, all
mathematics teachers at Dover Area High School in Pennsylvania will
be obliged to instruct their pupils that 'one plus one equals two
...or six, depending on your point of view.' ..."

The Guardian (UK) reports on Jan. 17th that "Urban myths
have occasionally been known to nudge the boundaries of credibility,
but the people of Birmingham are finding it difficult to laugh off
the possibility that a vampire could be lurking in the city. Stories
about a man who stalks the streets, sinking his teeth into
passers-by, began to emerge from the Ward End area of the city last
month. ..."

Reuters asked on Jan. 14th that "Can there be a predisposition
for fundamentalism? Do the faithful cope more easily with pain? Are
they faster to recover from illness? Such are the questions
scientists and theologians will attempt to answer at a new study
center which starts experiments into human consciousness in the next
few months. ...Greenfield said its time has come because of people's
propensity to go against all logic, based on certain beliefs and
faiths. She highlighted the rise of fundamentalist beliefs as a
concern. 'We are very mindful as to the state of the world as to the
strength of beliefs and what that can do for world peace and
well-being,' she said. 'What is it in the brain that, in the presence
of evidence, refutes that evidence?' ..."

The Daily Lobo (UNM) reported on Jan. 19th that "In a
stroke of luck, the NASA rover Opportunity has discovered a
basketball-size metal meteorite sitting on the surface of Mars, the
mission's main scientist said Tuesday. Scientists believe the
meteorite might lead to clues about how martian winds are reshaping
the planet's surface. ..."

Jeffry Gardner, columnist for the Albuquerque Tribune, wrote on
Jan. 20 that "In making the decision to cancel the show "Unlocking
the Mystery of Life," derisively referred to as "creationism" by the
rabidly anti-Christian voices that squeak like greaseless wheels in
the so-called science community, KNME-Channel 5's radio marketing
manager Joan Rebecchi said "Life's" producers had not just an agenda
but a religious agenda. KNME's decision was cheered by a group called
New Mexicans for Science and Reason. The Science and Reason folks
slammed the show as "religious propaganda" and made it clear we all
benefited from their and KNME's collective protection. ..."

The "WedgieWorld" blog
reports on Jan. 8th that "In an ironic twist, the Discovery
Institute's Center of Science and Culture blogging website has been
involved in censoring user comments. Adding to the irony is the fact
that the comments were to a posting accusing KNME of censoring the
airing of 'Unlocking the Mystery of Life'..."

WorldNetDaily.com reports on Jan. 7th that "Earlier this week,
the PBS station in Albuquerque, N.M., canceled a scheduled showing of
a documentary on intelligent design, eliciting charges of
'politically correct censorship.' The station says there was concern
about the fact that those who funded the film have religious ties.
Seattle-based Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
criticized the station for the cancellation. 'It is simply astounding
that a public television station would engage in this sort of
politically correct censorship,' said Rob Crowther, director of
communications for the organization, in a statement. 'Public
television usually prides itself in exploring new ideas, not
suppressing them. Doesn't anyone at KNME believe in free speech?'
..."

On Thursday, Jan. 12th, the New
Mexico Academy of Science weighed in on the topic in an
Op-Ed on page A11 of the Albuquerque
Journal, saying "We have found the "documentary" to be an
infomercial for creationism rather than a balanced discussion of
evolution and biology. ... The producers and funders of "Unlocking"
have an agenda. They are predominantly religious groups who wish to
change the very nature of science, and to have their own religious
views taught in public schools as if they were science. Intelligent
Design evolved from Bible-based creationism. Please, do not assume
that the NMAS opposes any religious views. We do not. Many of our
members are quite religious. But, we are against misusing science to
push any specific religious agenda. ..."

The Associated Press (Atlanta) reported on Jan. 13th that
"A federal judge has ordered the removal of stickers placed in
high school biology textbooks that call evolution 'a theory, not a
fact.' The judge ruled Thursday that the disclaimers put in the books
by Cobb County school officials in 2002 were unconstitutional.
'Adopted by the school board, funded by the money of taxpayers, and
inserted by school personnel, the sticker conveys an impermissible
message of endorsement and tells some citizens that they are
political outsiders while telling others they are political
insiders,' U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said in his 44-page
ruling. ..."

The Discovery Institute is in full Finger-Pointing Mode, reporting
on Jan. 13th that "The decision by a federal judge in Georgia to
overturn a textbook sticker about evolution may have been aided by
the school district's own lawyer, according to the Center for Science
and Culture at Discovery Institute. Seth Cooper, an attorney and
legal analyst with Discovery Institute, faulted school district lead
counsel Linwood Gunn for putting on 'an incompetent defense.'
..."

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
reported on Jan 10 "After reviewing data from four Earth-orbiting
radar satellites, NOAA scientists today announced they were able to
measure the height of the devastating tsunami that erupted in the
Indian Ocean. The ability to make depth surveys from space may lead
to improvements in the models that forecast the hazardous effects of
tsunamis. ..."

ABC News reports on Jan. 13th that "NASA's Deep Impact
comet-busting spacecraft emerged from "safe mode" and was operating
normally, the space agency said Thursday. The spacecraft went into
protective mode after launch Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, Fla.,
when it detected higher-than-expected temperatures in its propulsion
system. ..."

NASA announced on Jan. 14th that "NASA Administrator Sean
O'Keefe today offered congratulations to the European Space Agency
(ESA) on the successful touchdown of its Huygens probe on Saturn's
moon Titan. ... The probe entered Titan's upper atmosphere at about
5:15 a.m. EST Jan. 14. During its two and one-half hour descent to
the surface of the moon, it sampled the chemical composition of the
atmosphere. The probe continued transmitting data for more than 90
minutes after reaching the surface. ..."

MSNBC reported on Jan. 12th that "Villagers digging in
China's rich fossil beds have uncovered the preserved remains of a
tiny dinosaur in the belly of a mammal, a startling discovery for
scientists who have long believed early mammals couldn't possibly
attack and eat a dinosaur. Scientists say the animal's last meal
probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs some
130 million years ago. ..."

Rob Zaleski of the Capitol Times (Madison, WI) writes on Jan.
7th that "...Brown, the pastor at Community of Hope United Church
of Christ on Madison's far west side, was more than happy to join 187
Christian clergy in signing a letter that was sent to the Grantsburg
School Board shortly before Christmas to express dismay that the
board would approve policies that undermine the teaching of
evolution. 'We the undersigned,' it began, 'believe that the timeless
truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may
comfortably co-exist. We believe that the theory of evolution is a
foundational science truth, one that has stood up to rigorous
scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rest.
To reject this truth or to treat it as 'one theory among others' is
to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such
ignorance to our children.' ..."

Believers, Beware... is
Astrology Dangerous? It is around Lucy
Mangan...

In the Wednesday January 5, 2005 edition of The Guardian
[UK], Lucy Mangan has a piece titled "Are you a woman who
believes in astrology? Then let me back you into a corner - and beat
some sense into you." A taste: "The next time a woman (and it
is always a woman - men have many flaws but at least they prefer to
seek the answers to their problems in Top Gear and Abi Titmuss rather
than the waxings and wanings of the moon) asks you what star sign you
are, swears by essential oils, magnet therapy or talks about
realigning anything but shelves, make a stand. Back her into a corner
and talk at her about Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Crick and Watson and
Jeremy Paxman until she admits the error of her ways. For astrology
and the rest to flourish it is only necessary that those with an IQ
in double figures do nothing. ..."